Author's Notes
Okay, really should stop taking challenges. But I was stuck on Harry and Cho and spotted the 20 drabbles one. So…yeah. The character (obviously) is Arthur Weasley. Don't ask why; he was the first person I haven't written about yet that occurred to me.
Collection named because "Arthur Weasley was originally intended to die in either the fifth or seventh book (particularly when Nagini attacked him), but J. K. Rowling decided against it, because he was "one of the few good fathers in the series."" - wikipedia
Prompt 1: timeless
Word count: 411
To Live a Good Man
Drabble 1
In times of difficulty, one sometimes found comfort in that which was perpetually constant.
When the first War began, he was still at Hogwarts; they both were. The discovery of his love for Molly Prewett had coincided with some of the largest outcries of support for Voldermort's regime, and the world outside was suddenly turned upon his head. His mother, after years of estrangement from her family, had received a letter from her father.
He'd been in the living room, attempting to track down the model aeroplane he'd received for Christmas in his third year, when the black owl arrived. Wand emerged from sleeve almost instantly, but the letter had been unsealed and read without any spell-related consequences. He was, after all, old enough to realise his mother's face changing from its usual pale progressing to a blotched red and then a stark white in quick succession was not the effect of magic but the written words.
The "incendio" that turned the parchment to a crisp validated that. And the ashes of her father's, his grandfather's, last words to the estranged Weasley née Black were vanished with a sweep of the wand.
Then she'd smiled at him and waved her wand a third time; his model aeroplane flew out from behind the curtain and into his hands.
'Do keep better track of your things, Art,' she said, pain hidden in affection.
Thirty-one years later (and twenty-nine years after his marriage to Molly), he stood witness to his wife using the same charm to light the fireplace while summoning his socks and a spanner he'd received from Harry Potter from under the couch while said boy fought humanity's war with his son and Hermione Granger.
The radio echoed noisily; he hadn't managed to tune it correctly, but it didn't matter. Fred and George were clearly audible, giving them updates to a situation they were now detached from. Like the first war, there was little they could now do except keep the family safe and maintain hope; they weren't out there fighting Death Eaters, but even if they were, it would not do an ounce of good.
Except give another Dirk Cresswell and Ted Tonks.
Both husband and wife bowed their heads in a minute of silence for their good friends, and for all others who had lost their lives in such wars.
An unintentional flick of the wand, and loose screws crept towards Arthur's feet, accompanied by Molly's (somewhat forcibly) disapproving gaze.