She enjoyed baking chocolate chip cookies. Tidying up after the children.
Washing the blue-flowered dishes by hand. Sitting by the hearth and just
thinking. Hugging her children.
And she also enjoyed knitting.
Knitting sweaters. Sweaters that practically screamed 'love' and 'comfort' and 'home' and 'love from Mummy.'
Sweaters the children got a kick out of, and usually never wore. But that didn't matter, because it was her idea, and she always did it, it was tradition. Ron's was always maroon, she thought it looked lovely on him, not because he liked maroon (heavens no, even she knew that) but because she was his Mummy and she wanted that for him.
Hours she'd sit by the hearth and just knit. As she knitted each sweater she'd think of each child. The intense labor, the child's personality. His (or her, in Ginny's case) favorite food and color, how they were doing at Hogwarts, what they would be like when they 'grew up.'
It had been a tough yeah for the Weasleys'. The money was short, although that was no different. But Percy had ostracized himself from the family. The warm comfort of the Burrow and the people who inhabited it. He was working with the Ministry, he had a nice job there, 'nice' but not necessarily 'good.' And there was a difference.
It was everything they wanted for him, really. It paid well, extremely well. It was a position of affluence and showed class. The job worked well with his sharp intellect. They could never say their son had been an underachiever.
Slowly the boy who wore his '-grape cotton candy-' coloured Weasley sweater with a pride unbeknownst to the rest of the world began to realize that the moral values he had been raised with were quite different from his very personal own set of values.
And so it began.
This year, as she sat by the hearth taking small sips of green tea as she did so, she went by birth order as she began knitting the sweaters.
She never faltered as she took out quite a bit of '-grape cotton candy-' colored string and began to knit Percy's sweater. It was tradition, and whether he was acting like a dolt or not didn't even begin to come into the picture.
"Molly," Arthur said coming into the living room with a mug of coffee.
"Yes, dearest?" She asked, tears almost welling in her cashew coloured eyes.
"Never mind," the tall, tired man said.
He hadn't the heart to tell her that Percy would simply send the sweater back, even though he hoped he wouldn't. He hadn't the heart to tell her that he knew Percy better than anyone in the world did, and he knew that Percy would look at the sweater with similar tears in his eyes and send it back.
For he had always been overfilled with pride and honor. Even when he was a child, he refused to apologize or even listen to orders.
"I make the orders," he said stubbornly when his Mother asked him to pick up his toys.
"Percy," his Father said warningly.
"Arthur," the lady hissed as she nodded to her five year old who looked obnoxiously smug just then, "he is '- my -' boy and he doesn't have to obey orders from anyone. Let him give the orders."
And it was just then, that this memory came back to her. Curly gray hairs framed her tired face as she continued to knit the sweater.
It took her quite a while, but when she had finished, she looked back at it with pride.
She wrapped it in brown butcher's paper and attached a note with flowing purple ink saying,
"Love from Mummy"
~*~
La Fin
And she also enjoyed knitting.
Knitting sweaters. Sweaters that practically screamed 'love' and 'comfort' and 'home' and 'love from Mummy.'
Sweaters the children got a kick out of, and usually never wore. But that didn't matter, because it was her idea, and she always did it, it was tradition. Ron's was always maroon, she thought it looked lovely on him, not because he liked maroon (heavens no, even she knew that) but because she was his Mummy and she wanted that for him.
Hours she'd sit by the hearth and just knit. As she knitted each sweater she'd think of each child. The intense labor, the child's personality. His (or her, in Ginny's case) favorite food and color, how they were doing at Hogwarts, what they would be like when they 'grew up.'
It had been a tough yeah for the Weasleys'. The money was short, although that was no different. But Percy had ostracized himself from the family. The warm comfort of the Burrow and the people who inhabited it. He was working with the Ministry, he had a nice job there, 'nice' but not necessarily 'good.' And there was a difference.
It was everything they wanted for him, really. It paid well, extremely well. It was a position of affluence and showed class. The job worked well with his sharp intellect. They could never say their son had been an underachiever.
Slowly the boy who wore his '-grape cotton candy-' coloured Weasley sweater with a pride unbeknownst to the rest of the world began to realize that the moral values he had been raised with were quite different from his very personal own set of values.
And so it began.
This year, as she sat by the hearth taking small sips of green tea as she did so, she went by birth order as she began knitting the sweaters.
She never faltered as she took out quite a bit of '-grape cotton candy-' colored string and began to knit Percy's sweater. It was tradition, and whether he was acting like a dolt or not didn't even begin to come into the picture.
"Molly," Arthur said coming into the living room with a mug of coffee.
"Yes, dearest?" She asked, tears almost welling in her cashew coloured eyes.
"Never mind," the tall, tired man said.
He hadn't the heart to tell her that Percy would simply send the sweater back, even though he hoped he wouldn't. He hadn't the heart to tell her that he knew Percy better than anyone in the world did, and he knew that Percy would look at the sweater with similar tears in his eyes and send it back.
For he had always been overfilled with pride and honor. Even when he was a child, he refused to apologize or even listen to orders.
"I make the orders," he said stubbornly when his Mother asked him to pick up his toys.
"Percy," his Father said warningly.
"Arthur," the lady hissed as she nodded to her five year old who looked obnoxiously smug just then, "he is '- my -' boy and he doesn't have to obey orders from anyone. Let him give the orders."
And it was just then, that this memory came back to her. Curly gray hairs framed her tired face as she continued to knit the sweater.
It took her quite a while, but when she had finished, she looked back at it with pride.
She wrapped it in brown butcher's paper and attached a note with flowing purple ink saying,
"Love from Mummy"
~*~
La Fin