AN: For the QFLC Round 8. I'm using the character Molly Weasley of the Next Gen. (Who I did not even know was a character before this round. I'm terrible with the Next Gen.) The prompts used for this round are the restriction, no use of the name Weasley, the nursery rhyme Frére Jacques, and the word gliding. (Prompts 4, 10, and 11.) Some artisitc liberties were taken with the Next Gen characters' personalities, but I tried to keep facts as accurate as possible.
Title this time is from the poem "Is/Not" by Margaret Atwood.
Total word count: 2, 423 (according to Fanfiction.)
Molly the Second is not the only child of her generation to be named after someone from the past. She is one of the few to be named after someone still alive though, but that's as interesting as it gets.
At sixteen, Molly hates being second.
"Dad," Molly says the day of her sixteenth birthday.
He looks up from his newspaper, his reading glasses slipping down his nose until they're less than an inch away from falling completely off. The glass magnifies the spots of freckles that dot his nose and cheeks, the same ones that Molly had inherited from him.
Molly looks down at her bowl of soggy cereal and stirs it once counterclockwise, like a potion to give her courage. She looks up again to find her father waiting patiently, newspaper flat on the table, opened up to the page on the latest Ministry raid on a surviving Death Eater camp. Uncle Ron is firing a spell off, looking fierce and dangerous. It's completely at odds with Molly's own image of him - goofy, kind of insensitive.
Molly looks into her father's eyes and says, "From now on call me Ly."
Dad looks bewildered for a moment, looking at Mum for confirmation. She nods encouragingly at him, because Molly had already talked to Mum before even bringing this up with her dad.
"Lee? Like Lee Jordan, Lee?" he asks with a vague hand gesture. The newspaper folds without his hands to keep it steady, the paper flopping so that her uncle's face is no longer visible.
Molly shakes her head, bringing her spoon out of her cereal to gesture vaguely as well. "No, spelled L-Y, but pronounced 'lee,'" she explains, moving her spoon to trace the words out in the air. "It gets confusing when Grandad says Molly and me and Grandmum both ask him what he wants."
Dad looks at her, eyes piercing, and waits.
"And I don't want to be Grandmum for the rest of my life," she adds, dropping the spoon back in her cereal.
"Oh, Molly," Dad says with a sigh. It's his 'oh sweetheart' voice, the one that he uses when he's sad because his daughters are sad. It's nice, but Molly pulls a face. She doesn't want to be Molly anymore.
Mum catches the grimace, shooting Molly a look of concern that shifts to impatience when she turns to Dad. She hits him on the upside of the head, and Dad yelps.
"Oh alright then, Ly it is, but we'll be talking about this later, honey," Dad says, and then straightens his paper. "I'd like to understand properly where you're coming from. If you want I can talk to your uncles and aunts so they know about the nickname." He pauses, lowering the newspaper so that his face is visible again.
"It is a nickname, right? You aren't going to be filing for a legal name change?" He grimaces a bit when he says that, but he has this supportive look on his face, like he'd actually go with her to the Ministry to help fill it out if she said she was going to legally change it.
Molly can't lie. She's thought about it, but she decided it's a bit much for the moment.
"Yes Dad, it's just a nickname - I just. It's hard to explain." Molly says, and then picks up her spoon and goes back to eating her cereal.
Lucy bursts into the kitchen at that moment, half-dressed and hair a mess. "Merlin, is there oatmeal? Please? Ly, is there oatmeal?" she whines, dropping into the chair between Molly and Dad.
Mum shakes her head. "Put on some pants, Lucy."
Hogwarts in sixth year is just as it was in fifth year, in fourth year, in third and second and first: incredible, an adventure from start to finish.
Molly hasn't ever hated her time at Hogwarts, not even when she tripped in Potions class and upended someone's half-finished potion all over the both of them, not when she got hit by a dungbomb by Peeves in the middle of the Transfiguration hall, or any other embarrassing moment she's ever had in the castle.
But that doesn't mean she's hasn't found it frustrating, at times.
"Well done," Professor Flitwick says, clapping his hands in glee. Molly grins at him, the little birds that she summoned with the charm meant for seventh years flitting about her head.
"You're just like your grandmother," Flitwick exclaims. "She has a talent for charms as well!"
Molly's grin falls.
"That's the problem," she mutters under her breath as Flitwick runs over to another student.
"Molly - " James Potter says, and yelps when he's hit in the arm by Albus.
"It's Ly," Molly reminds him. "I thought you'd remember that by now, it's been months since classes started."
James shrugs. "Sorry Ly," he tells her, and has the decency to look guilty as he does. She nods in acceptance, then pats the space on the bench next to her. On her other side, Albus rolls his eyes, looking up across the table to share a look with Scorpius.
"So, what's up?" Molly says, heaping food onto her plate. The lunch rush is just beginning to trickle in as students finish their classes. Molly, Albus, and Scorpius had Herbology earlier, and would have been coming in with the rest of the student body, but Professor Longbottom had to deal with an emergency involving some Mandrakes and dismissed class early.
The noise levels rises as students sit down, and food rapidly begins to disappear from the serving plates. James, Scorpius, and Albus both get odd looks for sitting at the Hufflepuff table, but people know by now that they ignored every unspoken rules about inter-House fraternization.
Molly herself is the lone Hufflepuff in their group. Scorpius is the Slytherin, Albus the Ravenclaw, and James is the Gryffindor. Together they make an even group.
James shrugs, snatching an apple from the fruit bowl to take a bite out of it. He munches, swallows, and then turns to her and says, "My dad wants me to become an Auror."
Albus chokes on his water. Molly hits him on the back without looking.
"What? But that's dangerous!" Albus spits out, along with some water. Scorpius hands him a napkin, but doesn't say anything. He does that, Molly's noticed. He avoids getting caught up in Potter dramatics, but ends up getting caught up in them anyway because he always follows Albus.
"So's potions making, or Care of Magical Creatures, or Herbology." James points out, then miserably, says. "being an Auror is kind of a family thing, isn't it?"
Molly takes a bite out of her mashed potatoes.
Albus peers at James from around her, also looking miserable. "I don't want you to become an Auror."
Scorpius looks distinctly uncomfortable, and his hands rises up from the table and moves in Albus' direction, but the movement is abandoned halfway through. Molly watches him use it to pick up his fork and push around some treacle tart instead with a raised eyebrow. Scorpius catches her look and shrugs, making a face that looks almost halfway helpless.
James smiles, but it's not a particularly nice one. "I don't want to become an Auror."
"Then don't," Molly interjects. She waves her fork around like she did the morning she talked with Dad. "Do what you want, your dad can't make you risk your life to catch bad guys just 'cause he wants you to be someone you're not."
Albus leans away, eyebrows knit together. "What do you mean, 'someone you're not?'"
Molly looks at him. "Al. Albus. You're name is Albus Severus. His is James Sirius. Mine is Molly. The only one here not named after a grandparent is Scorpius."
Scorpius smirks, "It's a Black family tradition to name your children after a constellation."
Molly rolls her eyes. "The point, Al, is that we're all being compared to other people. People we are most decidedly not."
Albus makes a little 'o' shape with his mouth in understanding. James shakes his head, "I kind of figured," he says, taking another bite of his apple. "But that doesn't help me with my problem. See, if I tell Dad I don't want to be an Auror he'll get this sad, disappointed look."
Albus nods sympathetically, "Merlin, I hate that face."
Molly snorts, eating some more mashed potatoes. "I know what you mean, about disappointing your parents," she says. "Mum wants me to become a Healer, but I really hate hospitals and I have terrible bedside manners and 'violent tendencies,' according to Lucy."
Scorpius narrows his eyes. "You know, James, your father cares about you and helping people more than he cares about family traditions." He takes a careful bite of his chicken, chewing as everyone considered that point.
James predictably says, "Yeah, so?"
Scorpius rolls his eyes, but Albus looks thoughtful, so Molly waits.
"Why don't you and Ly switch future occupations? A Healer helps people, so your father will be happy, and Ly can punch people all she wants as an Auror."
Molly looks at him. "That's brilliant."
During a family gathering, Molly flies over the picnic on her broom, following after James leisurely.
James laughs loudly, easily heard over the wind whistling in Molly's ears and the sounds of chatter from below. Even only a few meters above the ground, James looks thrilled to be up in the air. He throws his hands out as if to embrace the wind, steering his broom with his thighs. The sunlight silhouettes him, and for a brief moment, James is a dark shape in the sky outlined by light.
"Careful!" Aunt Ginny calls out, and James puts his hands back on his broom with a groan of annoyance.
Gliding over some of the younger kids, Molly hears Louis teaching Roxanne how to sing Frére Jacques and despairing loudly at her pronunciation. Nearby the two are Albus and Scorpius with their heads bent close together, talking too quietly for her to hear.
"- just like his his grandfather, isnt he?" She hears.
She doesn't know who said it, but she shouts, anyway. "We're our own people!"
The people below look appropriately apologetic. James sends her a grateful look.
Teddy shows up ten minutes late, but bearing a whole tray of food so he's forgiven by Gradmum and only minimally fussed over by Uncle Harry.
It's only later, when everyone's eaten and are drifting into quiet conversations, that Molly goes up to Ted and says, "What's it like to be a Metamorphmagus?"
Behind them, Louis is still trying to get Roxanne to correct her pronunciation, the faint strains of singing interrupted every few minutes:
"Frére Jacques, Frére Jacques, dormez-vous - "
"No, no, you don't pronounce the 's.'"
Teddy looks up at her, half of a cookie hanging out of his mouth. He pats the grass beside him, takes the cookie out of his mouth, and says, "Pretty awesome, but I don't think that's what you want to ask me."
Molly grins sheepishly, sitting down. She wraps her arms around her legs.
"So, what's up?" Teddy says. He leans back, propping himself up with an arm. His hair is a dark purple today, as it has been the last few times Molly's seen him.
Molly shrugs. "Just some - well, identity troubles? I guess." She says. She looks away, to where a moth lands on Teddy's toe. He doesn't bother to shoo it away, and she watches as it's brown wings unfurl, fluttering.
"I thought you'd know something about that," she adds.
Ted smiles at her, kind and understanding. "Is this related to why you're now going by Ly?"
She nods.
"I think I get where you're coming from, then," he says. He sighs as he flops down to lie, spread eagle, on the grassy hill.
"Being a Metamorphmagus is fun and everything, and it's part of who I am," Teddy says. "But a lot of the times, I'd just happen to have bubblegum pink hair or brown hair and people would say I look like my parents. Don't get me wrong, they're part of me too. But they're not me."
He turns his head to the side to look at Molly properly. "I'm not my parents. I don't even know them. So now I just stick to purple hair. Boom, everyone stops saying I remind them of someone else."
She snorts. "It must be nice, to be able to be anyone."
Teddy pokes her in the side. "You're not getting it, Ly. I chose purple. No one else had or has purple hair. It's all my own."
He turns to his side, and pushes himself up a bit to look her in the eyes. "I could be anyone, yeah, but I'd much rather be myself."
Molly is the only woman in her family to become an Auror, or at least the first.
In the space of a year on the job, she punches three people, threatens two, and falls in love with one, but is unable to bring that person home to meet her parents nine times out of ten.
"You'll adopt, won't you Ly?" Mum asks her, fretting as she stirs the pot of soup they're having for dinner. "Your father and I would like grandchildren, you know, and Merlin knows Lucy goes through boyfriends like tissue."
"I think that's because they can't keep up with her," Molly tells her, and Mum just squints at her through her new glasses, the one she got a couple weeks ago when she finally admitted she couldn't see things close up to her anymore. Molly hands her the bowl of chopped carrots, and watches as she rolls her eyes and dumps the carrots into the soup to cook.
"They'll settle down when they want to, Audrey," Dad says from where he's setting the table. "In any case, Ly's her own person. She can make that decision when she's ready for it."
Molly smiles.