Title: Sunset All Over
Title: Sunset All Over
Author:Saynt
Rating: PG to be on the safe side; for ideas more than anything.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Harry Potter is not mine.
Summary: Molly thinks about her sons and brothers. Rather melancholy
Years later, time she's measured in first steps, teeth cut, triumphs, and tears shed, she still finds herself rising from where ever she's sitting, half-smiling, eyes glowing and arms half open in welcome of a glinting sunset colored head caught in the corner of her eye. Usually, she'll come to herself before she fully rises, before an ill promised joy completely possesses her. In the immediately following breath, she is silent; the grief never expressed as fully as she felt it overtaking her. But just for a moment, before she soundlessly takes in air she nearly chokes on with her head slightly bowed to hide, the smile suddenly becomes wistful and tears gather in her eyes.
It's begun happening more and more recently. She realizes this of course and, though neither fool nor generally given to denial or self-delusion, she tells herself it's similar circumstances that cause these unbidden, impossible dreams. She nearly convinces herself that it isn't that each of her sons, now grown, remind her in some way of her cherished brothers.
Night, when her home is still and silent and unfamiliar because of it, is the only time she allows herself to resuscitate those memories. They are still vibrant, un-dulled by the wear of time and knowledge of changes she admits she finally submitted to. They heal sometimes. They close the sliced wounds of hurt and abandonment she can't help but feel; somewhere inside of this sturdy, capable mother of seven resides the grief-stricken, athletic young mother she was. She will not let anyone see this; this intimate pain will never know the sound of her children's voices.
Bill
Her firstborn son is charming and witty and free-spirited in way that she doesn't remember how to be. Bill was delivered in her parents' home, in her old bedroom, nearly a month before he was expected and when Arthur and her father were at work and her mother was already dead. She remembers how frightened she was when she realized that the planned midwife had recently gone on vacation and that she and brothers knew no other midwives or anything about delivering human babies. She remembers how Gideon's face paled and his mouth dropped when Fabian said "Well, we'll just do it ourselves; how hard can it be?" and how she laughed when Gideon stammered about anatomical differences between ewes and witches and laughed again when Gideon fainted as Bill was born and how they all shed tears of joy when they heard the baby cry that first time and the immediate silence and how embarrassed they were when Gideon suggested that they contact St. Mungo's and how they left that bit out when telling the story later. She remembers that it took her yelling at her brothers and her father hitting them with a rolled up newspaper for them to hand Arthur his son. She remembers the soft smile they both had when looking at Bill every day after that and believes that must be where Bill learned it and thinks that the confidence and quiet strength that always gets her son safely home is the same confidence that got her brothers through his delivery. Bill remembers that Fabian and Gideon would have done anything for their sister without her even having to ask and Molly knows that this is where Bill learned love.
Charlie
She is always so completely happy when she knows Charlie will be home. There is something completely joyful about her second son. He is built like his uncles and always has been and it was them who taught Charlie to love untamed, dangerous things and this is perhaps the only thing she holds against them. Molly still laughs when she thinks of telling her brothers when she was expecting Charlie. They were even happier than she and Arthur and she'll always treasure the look of absolute horror on Arthur's face when Fabian suggested they deliver this one as well. She's never heard her husband protest anything quite so vehemently. She thinks it would have been great fun and would have liked to see Gideon faint again but knows it isn't likely because Gideon was hard to take by surprise and Freesia, the midwife she planned, told her the day before that her that her brothers had lots of questions for her and asked how long an apprenticeship would take. Molly just laughed the laugh of her brothers and promised they could take the baby with them into the woods surrounding the house after he's born. She watched her son grow after her brothers are dead and watched him wander into the Burrow from out of the surrounding woods with all manners of animals no matter how she protested. When Charlie comes home, she makes certain he sits close enough to smell because after his bath he still smells of pine and smoke and sun and just like his uncles and she loves to hear his laugh and watch his whole face alight. She hugs Charlie most of all her children and knows it is because he hugs her back and Molly forgets that it isn't his uncles' arms that enfold her.
Percy
When Percy sets his mind to something, she can almost see her brothers in his Weasley-thin frame. The stubborn set of his jaw and the way he leans into an argument changes the delicate features so like his father's into a near copy of Fabian's face. The slight raising of his eyebrows and the way his lips purse slightly when he doesn't want to think something is funny makes her think of Gideon. He is the last son her brothers met and she still smiles when remembering how they adored him. Percy was such a shy baby, even with Arthur, who loved his third son so much; but each of the few times Fabian and Gideon were able to visit, Percy would sit cuddled on one lap or the other. He made no noise and didn't squirm as most toddlers would have, just sat and laid his ear to Gideon's chest until he was lulled to sleep by the strong heartbeat. Once in a while, Molly recalls that Percy, always such a quiet child, threw a tantrum and begged his uncles not to leave that last time. He was silent for almost four months when their prolonged absence was explained. She knows that his hurt was compounded by her inability and unwillingness to comfort him and that though he knows in his head that she loves him, his heart doesn't understand this and is still broken by the near simultaneous loss of the three people he loved most. It is Percy, Molly knows, who best understands that his mother was nearly broken by his uncles' death and she realizes that he is doing everything he can to stop the cracks from spreading.
Twins
George and Fred were born just seven months after her brothers were murdered and it was the two of them that brought her back to life. They didn't know their uncles, just that Mummy had two brothers who they were named for and, later, that those brothers were killed. She worried after them for a long time, that they didn't seem to want anything and that they wouldn't be able to defend themselves if it came to it. This is one of the reasons that she never put a stop to the joke shop nonsense; now they know all sorts of charms and curses and hexes and potions and she is perversely, if unexpectedly, proud. She knows that her twins are troublemakers, knows that sometimes they go too far in search of their next laugh, but Molly learned to recognize the signs of an impending prank before she got to Hogwarts and she cannot help laughing softly when she thinks of the identical looks of frustration on her sons' faces when she puts a stop to some of their plans. Still, she hopes that they will eventually learn to stop themselves because she cannot bring herself to do it permanently. It's their ability to look completely innocent even if caught with their hands around a throat that bring her brothers to mind and Molly knows she cannot discipline them the way they should be and that's what makes them wild as they are.
Ron
Despite that her only daughter is her youngest child, her last born boy will always be her baby and, though she would never admit it, she loves Ron best of all her children. He has no idea what his uncles were like and has only seen them in pictures and stories that Percy would paint him when he couldn't sleep and Molly was already in bed. Ron would always ask the about them the next morning and Molly couldn't help but be surprised as how much Percy remembered. "Yes, Ronnie, your uncles were very strong" "Yes, they were very brave." "Yes, they were beautiful." "Yes, they would have loved you." "Yes, Gideon's chest vibrated when he talked." Molly looked at her youngest son when he was born and knew he would one day make her cry. He loses his temper constantly. He never admits when he is wrong. He's never met an impulsive action he wasn't willing to take. He would walk through Hell to save people he's never met. He begs forgiveness from people he loves like most people beg for their lives. He's passionate in all things. Molly worries because Percy told her when Ron was only 12 that Ron understood that you didn't kill for the people you loved, you died for them. Molly is terrified and irrational when no one can see her because it is Ron who is most like Fabian and Gideon and she knows she will not survive losing them again.
Ginny
She worries for Ginny of course, but is as sure as she can be given the circumstances that her daughter will suffer no direct injury. She has her brothers to look after her and her own stubbornness to get her through. Ginny is her mother's daughter after all; Molly knows she will keep going no matter that the hurt is as crippling as the worst curse or broken bones