"I still can't believe your brother agreed to watch all the children tonight."
Arthur grinned at Molly. "Well, I may have promised him some things in return if he did." Molly raised an eyebrow at him. "Plus, the guilt of this being our tenth anniversary and him not getting us a present worked rather well."
"Ha!" Molly barked a laugh. "Well, I supposed I can be glad that Patrick forgets these things for once."
"Exactly." Arthur inclined his glass of wine at Molly in a mock toast.
Molly returned the gesture and took a sip from her glass. The two of them were out at a restaurant in one of the lesser known side streets of Diagon Alley. It was a small quiet place mostly frequented by the over thirty crowd. Inside it seemed almost as if the war was not happening at all. The stone walls were light like sand and the floors were so dark they seemed black in the pale candle light. Molly knew the owner, a girl named Sally who had been a friend from Hufflepuff back in their Hogwarts days, so they were always found a table when they came.
"What'll be tonight?"
Arthur looked up at their waitress who had suddenly reappeared at the side of their table.
"I'll have the truffle pasta," Molly replied.
"And I'll just have the flank steak," Arthur said.
"Great," she replied. "I'll also get you some more of the blue bell wine if you like."
"Perfect," Arthur said.
The waitress nodded, took their menus and walked away. Arthur slid his arm across the table and took Molly's hand. She looked so beautiful in the candle light.
"I hope Patrick can handle the twins," Molly murmured.
Arthur couldn't help but smile. Molly never stopped thinking about their kids. It was truly astonishing that so much love could be inside one person. She amazed Arthur every single day just by being herself.
"They are just like Patrick was as a child only doubled."
They both laughed and Arthur played absently with Molly's fingers. She smiled at him. The candles floating around their table were mirrored in Molly's eyes and Arthur couldn't help but think of cheesy metaphors. It wasn't his fault if it was true that the light made her glow or that her eyes were deep and dark and beautiful.
"Happy anniversary, Molly," He said.
"Ten happy years," she replied. "Even if they weren't always so easy."
Arthur's smiled faded slightly and he nodded. "Yes."
The couple fell silent, hands still together on the table. Life since Hogwarts had not always been easy. Millions of different things compounded the difficulties of life for them, work, money, children, family, war, and death. It was hard not to be grim about life when you lost a brother to a war that should never have even happened if there weren't people so filed with their own righteousness and hate. It was hard to raise a family when you feared you may die just coming home from work. It was hard to be happy when every time you just opened the Daily Prophet there was anther report of death.
"Arthur."
He looked up at Molly.
"Are you all right?"
Arthur nodded at her and glanced away at the wall. "Yes… It's just a bit hard to be celebrating."
"I know," Molly replied. "The Death Ea… well it does make celebrating harder and what with George…"
Arthur stiffened and tightened his grip on Molly's hand.
"Yes."
"Still!" Molly said, with an clearly exaggerated sense of cheer. "We have a lot to be happy about."
"Twin boys," Arthur said, looking back at Molly.
"Troublesome twin boys you mean."
They both laughed and their hands parted. Arthur took a sip of his wine and picked up his fork.
"We have five children now who are all alive and healthy so I think for ten years of marriage that is a pretty good track record."
Molly scoffed, "You aren't the one who had to push them all out."
"Oh, Molly!" Arthur exclaimed.
"I mean it!" She leaned forward over the table. "I love our boys, of course I do, but it certainly does hurt like hell no matter what those mediwitches say about potions to help with the pain." She huffed. "They only help so much!"
Arthur tried not to laugh at his wife's indignant face. "I remember you saying so after Charlie, Molly. I was there too."
"Yes." Molly took a breadstick out of the basket in the middle and pointing with it. "Well, you didn't push them out."
"Ok." Arthur smiled and twirled his fork around in his hands. "But weren't they worth it in the end, Molly?"
Pursing her lips Molly looked down at the table then back again. She smiled and nodded her head.
"Yes, yes they were. Every day they make me happier and happier."
"Like the time Percy started screaming because someone had dog-eared a page in the copy we bought him of Charms to Challenge Children?"
Molly laughed out loud and then clapped a hand over her mouth, dropping her bread stick on the floor. Her hair fell gracefully in her face as she tired to control her laughter.
"Oh yes. I didn't know a five year old could get so upset over a book!"
"You know Molly," Arthur said. "Despite everything that is going on I am so happy with our family and our life now." He looked at Molly and smiled. "It's something worth all the danger, worth the fight, and worth the war. It's worth all of it because I have a wife like you and five children who I want to give the best possible world to."
Molly just gazed thoughtfully back at him and Arthur put his fork down looking away through the restaurant. In the corner a man was sitting alone drinking a glass of some amber liquid, probably honey wine. At another table further away two women were talking quietly over plates of pasta, their heads close together with their hair shielding their faces from onlookers. It was a peaceful restaurant on a calm evening. It felt like an ideal tenth anniversary in there.
"We are going to give them the best world Arthur, even if it's just inside the Burrow."
Arthur looked back at Molly. She was sitting tall with her hands flat on the table. Her expression was serious but she was smiling.
"We've gotten this far Arthur, ten whole years together and I'm not giving up on you yet."
Arthur chuckled. "Didn't realize I should be worried."
"You know what I mean." Molly shook her head and gave him a 'really Arthur' type of look.
Picking up his glass Arthur raised it up. "To ten more years of being alive and together."
They clinked glasses and drank the last of their wine just as their waitress emerged from the kitchen doorway carrying their plates of food.
"I love you, Molly," Arthur said.
Then he leaned over the table and kissed her. Ten years of bliss despite the struggle and he wasn't going to stop now, not for any damn war.