Challenge: The Quidditch League Competition

Character: Mollyii Weasley

Prompts: Undelivered letters, birthday, she's been too quiet lately.

Molly woke up to complete darkness. That wasn't a new feeling for her; she'd been blind since birth. That didn't stop the bitter feeling of disappointment that enveloped her. She resisted the urge to cry. Just once she wanted to be able to open her eyes and see something that wasn't darkness. She sighed, she'd hoped that maybe it would be different today, as it was her seventeenth birthday. It would have made sense to be given the gift of sight on the most important birthday of her life.

It had been her only wish every year, from as early as the time she was old enough to realise that not everyone saw nothing, and it would continue to be her one wish.

She shook off her melancholy thoughts and with a practiced ease, and slid out of bed into her slippers and grabbed her cane. She didn't actually need it. She knew the house as well as anyone who could see. Molly had spent years tracing the patterns on the walls, memorising each twist and turn and mark, mapping it all out in her head. No, Molly just wanted to create as much noise as possible in case her parents were planning something in the kitchen. She wanted to alert them of her presence in case it was a surprise. It was an idealistic, naive hope. Her parents hadn't done much in the way if being actual parents since Lucy died. Still, Molly held out hope.

Molly listened as she walked, for anything – the sound of voices, of movement, of anything to indicate that her parent's hadn't forgotten the most important day of her life. But she heard nothing. Molly felt her spirits drop just a fraction.

"Mum? Dad?"

She heard someone stir as she entered the kitchen, which connected to the lounge room.

"Lucy?" her father said groggily. Molly wanted to cry.

"Not Lucy, Dad," she said softly, trying to keep the bitterness out of her voice. Of course her father's waking thought would be about Lucy, her darling sister who'd gone off the rails and overdosed a few years back. Coincidentally, Lucy had died on Molly's birthday.

Molly listened to the sound of her father rising from the arm chair. Why he was asleep there, she didn't know.

Percy swore quietly. "Sorry, Molly. I was just thinking about your sister."

Of course you were, she thought. But she didn't say it out loud. "Where's mum?" Molly asked instead.

She imagined her father running a hand through his usually pristine hair. It has a habit she heard her mother often berated him for.

"She went to help your Grandmother set up. We're having a family day today to remember Lucy."

Part of Molly wanted to shout to the world that it was her seventeenth birthday, something she would never have again, but the rest of her knew that her family wouldn't see it that way. At least her father wouldn't. Despite her faults, Lucy was his favourite daughter. Molly felt the hurt pierce her heart, and she swallowed hard. She loved her sister, she did, but sometimes it was hard not to resent her.

"Right. Yeah. Lucy. Okay," Molly muttered.

When her father next spoke, she imagined him looking at her with the concern of a parent who actually cared, but whether or not he actually was she would never know.

"Is everything all right, Molly? You've been very quiet."

Molly thought she could detect a note of concern is his voice, but she brushed it off as her overactive, idealistic imagination. She felt like she was sinking down into a hole that she would never climb out of, and every mention of Lucy pulled her further down.

She merely nodded, not trusting her voice to speak. Molly left her father to his thoughts and went back to her room. There was no point eating now if her Grandmother was cooking.

Writing letters had always been a favourite past time of hers, she had a version of a quick quotes quill her father had charmed for her when she was younger. She would murmur what she wanted to say and the quill would write it.

Lucy, she began before scribbling it out and starting again.

My dearest Lucy.

No.

Little sister.

No.

To Lucy.

No.

Molly was getting more and more frustrated. Eventually she decided to write the letter, then the heading afterwards.

I miss you, Lucy. I know I get jealous that you're death overshadows my birthday sometimes, and I'm sorry. Usually I'm okay with it. It's just that today was my seventeenth. My coming of age. Surely you can understand that, right?

Life hasn't been the same since you died. Mum and Dad just keep getting sadder, and they fight more often. It's usually over petty things, but Mum often ends up crying. They miss you. You were always Dad's favourite, you know. He called me Lucy today. I wish you could come back.

I need my best friend back, Lucy. Then Mum and Dad wouldn't forget about my birthday. They would stop ignoring me and we could go back to how we used to be. I want you back, because you're the only person who doesn't walk on egg shells around me. You treated me like a human being. James is the only one that comes close to doing that, usually though it's because he forgot I was blind. The others...I know they mean well, but sometimes it's like they're suffocating me. That is, when they remember that I exist.

I have to go; we're going to the Burrow now, like we do every year to remember you.

Love, Molly.

She signed the letter with a flourish, and quickly scribbled 'For Luce' on the top, and put it in her drawer with all her other unsent letters. Molly heard her father call out again, and she scrambled to her feet and made her way to him.

The Burrow was the same as it was every year. Her Grandmother, Molly, cooked a feast. They all sat around a magical fire and gave a memory of Lucy. Lily always broke down crying; she'd been the one to take Lucy out the night she died. Albus would sit next to Molly, and she would hear him tapping. Whether it be his fingers or feet, he never sat still. Hugo was on her other side. They were the only two cousins she could stand. They never pitied her or excluded her because she was blind. Rather they tried to work around it, teaching Molly games she could play with them.

Molly knew it was petty, but she couldn't stand being anywhere near Lily, and Rose was Lily's best friend so where one went the other went, thus Molly never wanted anything to do with Rose either.

James and Fred pitied her, sometimes they'd ask her to play something with them, like Quidditch, but then they'd remember she was blind and take the offer back, apologizing profusely. Molly wished they didn't. She hated being blind, hated being so useless and such a burden on people. She hated it.

Molly felt suffocated. She'd been here for hours and everything she predicted to happen, happened. But still no one told her happy birthday. Molly retreated to her corner and absently drew images into the ground, trying not to let the bitterness drown her, trying to keep her head above it all. But it was getting harder and harder by the minute, she could hear Lily's sobbing, and the boys' yelling as they played their game. She could hear her parents sitting with all her aunts and uncles and grandparents. But no one, not even Albus and Hugo, wished her a happy birthday.

A single tear dripped down her cheer and she furiously wiped it away. It may have been her seventeenth birthday, but there was no way she was going to be so selfish as too cry for herself on her sister's anniversary. For the millionth time, she wished the old Lucy, before she'd gone off the rails, was here.

She fell deeper into the pit, internally screaming all the while. Home couldn't come fast enough, and Molly breathed a sigh of relief when her parents announced it was time to go home.

Molly wanted to go for a walk, to clear her head. She liked walking, especially through the park. It was her favourite place to go as a child, with Lucy tugging on her hand and describing everything she could see. They had a favourite tree they would sit under, with it's over hanging branches almost touching the ground. Lucy would draw, and Molly would write. It was also where they scattered Lucy's ashes. She felt the inexplicable urge to go there now, but her parents would never let her go on her own. They lived in a Muggle neighbourhood and there were major roads she had to cross.

Packing her writing things in a bag, she fumbled for her cane and went to find one of her parents, hoping they would walk her there and then leave her be. Molly hated that it made her so dependent on them, although she knew it was wise. Sometimes cars came speeding along those roads, and if you weren't careful you could get run over. Molly liked to think that with her heightened hearing, she would know if a car was coming, but the reality was that that wasn't necessarily reliable. Molly needed someone who could actually see to safely cross the road.

Quietly she approached the kitchen where her parents were, only to stop dead when she heard what they were saying.

"...she's been too quiet today, Audrey. I'm worried about her."

"It's the anniversary of her sister's death, Percy. She's probably just missing Lucy."

"No, I think there's something else going on. I feel like we've forgotten something."

"Percy, we haven't forgotten anything. Just leave her be, I'm sure she's fine. How about we just enjoy our time alone together for once, before Molly asks to go to the park or something. We hardly ever get anytime alone."

Molly almost choked. She felt like she'd just hit rock bottom. She'd fallen so far into the pit that she'd reached the end, and it hurt. A lot.

Was she really that much of a burden to them? Molly always thought she'd been very considerate, never asking for much or too often for fear of this exact situation. Where had she gone wrong?

Molly steeled herself. If her parents were really that sick of her then she would take herself to the park. There was a one in a million chance of anything actually happening, and by the sounds of it her parents would never even know she was gone.

It started off fine, but she was still nervous as she left the house. Molly had never done it alone before; she's never been so rebellious. Molly was always too conscious of trying to please her parents. She stumbled the odd time, but generally she was fine.

She crossed the first road with relative ease, and her confidence increased. There were no cars about. She quickened her pace, eager to get to her tree. And that was when she made a fatal mistake.

Molly, in her haste, forgot that the second road was much larger than the first, she forgot that it was more popular and she forgot about every rule her mother had taught her when crossing the road. Instead of stopping, listening, and slowly making her way onto the road, she just kept going.

She heard the engine of the car, but she couldn't tell which direction it was coming from. Panic enveloped her, she couldn't breathe. She felt disorientated and had no idea where the other side of the road was.

Breathe in, breathe out. That's what the Healer told her to in situations like this, to avoid a full blown panic attack. She needed to breathe, and keep calm.

It didn't work. Molly stood still in the middle of the road, her breathing had quickened to the point where she was almost hyperventilating, the noise of the coming car deafened her.

I just want to see Lucy, she cried in her head, mouth unable to shape the words. The car got louder, and louder and it sounded like it was coming from all sides. Molly imagined herself in a ring, frozen in the middle while cars came at her from all sides.

Tears leaked down her face and she knew now that she was never going to be able to climb out from the pit. No one would know it was her birthday. She would never get her sight back. She was trapped in the dark abyss of despair forever, blindly reaching out looking for something to hold onto, always finding nothing.

The car noise was so close, and someone screamed. It was probably her. Molly heard the screeching of car tires and presumed it was trying to stop. She took a deep breath.

Finally, she would be with Lucy again.

A/N I debated about adding more, her death in more detail, people's reactions etc but it didn't really work. It sounded much better ending it here.

Anyway please review/favourite