Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns everything except the plot of my story which belongs to me and the excerpt from "I'll Be Home for Christmas" which belongs to Kent and James Gannon.
"Christmas
Eve will find me
Where
the love-light gleams.
I'll
be home for Christmas
If
only in my dreams."
-Kent and James Gannon
When Molly looked back on her life, she smiled. She had accomplished most of what she wanted to accomplish. She had married a man who had loved her as much as she loved him and together they had created seven beautiful children. She and Arthur had made their tiny house into a very large home. They had filled it with nearly a hundred years worth of love and memories. A hand-knit afghan here, a figurine Ron had painted there. It added up, year after year, decade after decade until the Burrow became a museum of sorts, the resting place for everything Weasley.
Arthur had died the summer before and this would be their first Christmas without him. She felt the loss of him everyday though the pain of it was nothing like losing Fred. It was more like he had gone on an extended holiday without her and she wasn't quite sure what he was up to. The selfish part of her hoped she wouldn't have to wait too long to find out.
She drew a blanket around her shoulders. It was one she had knitted for Arthur on their first Christmas together as husband and wife. It had all gone by in a blink of an eye. She walked out onto the porch he had built for her 80th Birthday. The sun was setting over the hills, spraying its pink glow through the branches of the trees. She pushed a strand of silvery hair from her face. The whole family would be coming the next day to spend Christmas Eve with her. Her children had long since made their own children and those children had made children. She could no longer knit Christmas jumpers for all of them by herself so she had enlisted the help of her daughters-in-law (Ginny would no sooner step near knitting needles than she would a feral cat) and granddaughters.
She let out a deep sigh and sat down in her rocking chair, flicking her wand absently toward the kitchen. A tray with cup, saucer, and a steaming tea pot appeared beside her. With another flick, the porch heated up and she settled down for her favorite part of the day in her favorite place in whole world. Bill and Fleur had offered her a place at Shell Cottage after Arthur's death but she couldn't leave the Burrow. It had been her home for so long that she couldn't bear the thought of not living out her last days there. She poured herself a cup of tea.
Lately, she found herself remembering those first years at the old house. She and Arthur had been so hopelessly young then, so naïve, so blissfully happy. He had surprised her with the house on her twentieth Birthday. Before that, they had rented a tiny flat right outside Diagon Alley. Then the Burrow was comprised of a mere four rooms. There was the kitchen, the living room, study and then a small bedroom and bathroom. It was sitting in the middle of a big field that Arthur had inherited from his uncle. Arthur had been saving and reading up on buildings for the better part of the year, before they had even gotten married.
"Arthur, are you ever going to tell me what this is about?"
"Patience, patience," he laughed, his hands still covering her eyes.
"Pish! Let me see!" He chuckled once more but lifted his hands swiftly. She blinked a couple of times in the bright afternoon sun. For a moment, it didn't register. She turned to him questioningly.
"Welcome home Mollywobbles."
"You're joking!" she exclaimed, spinning around and gripping his forearms, gazing into his eyes.
"Nope, finished the work last week. It's all ours!"
"Ours?! This is our house?" Molly's grin grew painfully wide and she planted a wet kiss on Arthur's lips before bounding toward the house. She pulled open the front door and stepped inside. It was perfect, twice as big as their flat. The walls were a homey evergreen and the floors were made of sturdy, heavily distressed oak.
"I got the floorboards from that old house in London, you know the one," Arthur stated, shifting his weight from one foot to the other self consciously.
"I love the floors. I love these walls. I love this house. I love you Arthur. This is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me, ever in my whole life." She pulled him to her, kissing him deeply. She was twenty and married and had a house. He broke the kiss, pushing a strand of her hair from her face tenderly and tucking it behind her ear, smiling down at her.
"You're well worth it. I only wish I could have-"
"No, none of that," she stopped him, drawing her face into her sternest frown. "Don't you dare say anything bad about this house. It's perfect, absolutely perfect. When are we moving in?"
"Uh, well, to be honest, I hadn't thought it through that far," Arthur admitted sheepishly. Molly grinned at him.
"That's why you have me right? We'd fall to pieces without each other."
Molly smiled faintly. In the grand scheme of things, their time as just the two of them didn't amount to much. They had made up a lifetime of memories though. Sex on the kitchen floor, ill-fated craft projects, painting, hanging things on the walls, all of these things which made them . . . them and made this her home. She had looked at him differently then and he had looked at her differently. Back then, she was so young, thinner everything up where it should be. At twenty, her body hadn't been pulled, expanded and deflated six times. She remembered slipping out of bed early in the morning to do her hair and brush her teeth, sneaking back between the sheets before he awoke. He had told her once that he had done the same thing, back when he had hair to fix.
It wasn't that their love had faded over the years, far from it. Their love had become stronger and more all-encompassing. She knew him better with each passing year. Still, she couldn't help but be nostalgic of those first years when everything was new and simpler. They hadn't had to worry about wars and paychecks. England was peaceful then. Arthur's pay at the Ministry and her free-lance baking more than covered the costs they had between them. She didn't regret their children or the struggles they had gone through for they had brought husband and wife closer together but . . . She sighed, taking a long sip of tea. She missed him.
Her mind floated, settling on their first Christmas in the Burrow.
A/N: Hey kids. I'm in a Christmassy mood which I know is utterly unacceptable in the middle of October. As my friend Emma has forbade me from listening to Christmas music or in any way get in a Yuletide frame of mind, I decided to write some Christmas story stuff. I hope to have twelve chapters by Christmas Eve. We'll see what happens I hope you liked the chapter and please REVIEW!!
Love from St. Andrews,
Liz