Disclaimer: I don't own Potter Property

AN: This is done for Violet-Pheonix-Rose's Calendar Challenge. And I think it got out of hand. I wanted to post all of January as one chap, but I think it's a wee bit too long for that, so I split it up. My apologies. Also, I'm not sure about the quality, so, no guarantees about that one. Um…oh, yes. The prompt for January was: new, "I'm used to being lonely. It's the only thing I can rely on these days." And so we begin…

January 1

"She'd been gone for ten years. Ten. When she didn't come back after the summer when she said she'd come back, mum went over the deep end. She threatened to hunt her down and drag her back. Dad convinced her not to. She kept writing, though. For a while. Within six months, though, she stopped. It was like she died. The house was somber, quiet, eery. No one would go into her room. No one would talk about her. I hardly dared to think of her. We went on with our lives -- Vicky finally married someone, Rose got hitched, and even Albus found a woman. Most of us are engaged, now, or in a serious relationship. We're just waiting on Hugo, now. It seemed like we could almost live without her smiling face, buoyant personality, and ridiculously erratic behavior. Mum had stopped sobbing during holidays. Dad went into her room to borrow a book. I met Josh. All of it without her.

"And then she came back. Randomly, without warning, after removing herself. And she looked terrible, like she had been through the ringer more than once. And everything came rushing back. The broken promises to write and visit, the monumental occurrences she chose to miss, the people in our lives she no longer knows. I hate her for that. She doesn't belong anymore. She chose not to belong, so what is she doing here, pretending like she belongs?"

--Lucy Weasley

3

"I'm done, Lysander," Molly said, sitting down in the back of the van between the Scamander and Cory.

"Done with what?" Lysander asked, fishing through his knapsack for something.

"I'm done with this." She looked out the window at the passing country. "I'm done travelling around the world. I'm done pretending to be someone I'm not. I'm done acting."

"How can you be done acting?" Cory asked, the twenty-six year old still looking like a fifth year.

"I'm…I'm not having fun anymore," she said softly, her eyes watching the snow beginning to softly fall on the ground around them. "I'm not enjoying this. It feels like work. And if I'm going to have a job, I don't want to have to worry about travelling all over the world and wondering when my next meal will be and trying to keep away from the bars in Italy."

"Hey, it isn't your fault they think you're gorgeous," Lysander said, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear.

"Lysander," she said, her voice low and threatening. "I'm done."

"Molly, you're set to play Juliet in our next production…you can't just get up and…"

"Well, I am."

"But..."

"I need something new, Lysander. I've been here for too long. It was only supposed to be a summer job and we both know it. I need to get on with my life."

Lysander sighed and pulled out a wig from his bag -- a white powdered one he used to play King Henry.

"Nothing I can change will make you change your mind, will it, Weasley?" he asked, looking over at her with a despondent look in his eye.

"I'm sorry, Lysander. I have to go."

"Ok."

"The next bar we're throwing you a party, though," Cory promised, grinning broadly.

Molly shook her head and gave him a slight grin; Cory would do anything to get a good bottle of firewhiskey down the hatch.

3

"Bloody hell," Molly muttered, standing up and tripping over something left on the floor. She scuffed her knees on the floor. Damn it. Why did she always have to share a room with Lysander and Cory? They always, without fail, left their stuff strewn across the floor. She was done with it. Obsessive neatness was perhaps the only attribute she had inherited from her parents. And it certainly it didn't help that she was rather cranky at the moment.

"Damn firewhiskey," she grumbled, pulling herself onto her hands and knees. "I need get out of this hell hole."

She pulled on a pair of jeans over a pair of boxers she had picked up in Prague from some guy with a mustache -- the only time she had broken her rule about sleeping with a guy with facial hair. Her head throbbed against the memory. He hadn't been worth breaking her rule.

She hadn't slept with a guy since they had returned to England. At least, she thought she hadn't. Last night was still quite a blur. How Cory managed to get his hands on so much muggle whiskey was still a mystery. She threw on a jacket over her tank top and shouldered her bag. A part of her wished the other two would wake the fuck up so she could say goodbye. The other part wished they'd stay asleep. She knew the latter wish would come true; both of them had been twice as drunk as she had been and even if they were awake, they would be no company.

"Bye, guys," she muttered to herself as she quietly closed the door behind her. "It's been a good run, but everything good has to come to an end eventually."

Alone, she walked down the hallway and waited on the corner for the Knight Bus. For the first time in a long time, she thought of him. Of his stubble, his short hair, his clear blue eyes, his square glasses, his dirty fingernails, his calloused hands. For the first time in a long time, the loneliness she felt was overwhelming. She was leaving behind everything she was comfortable with, everything she knew. From here on out, she was winging it. She pressed her lips together. She had no one to rely on, no one to depend on. It was just her. She shivered against the cold. She really should have put on a sweatshirt, too. Home…her parent's house…was going to be freezing. The Knight Bus rattled around the corner, making the usual noises and emerging out of ostensibly no where. Molly got her money ready and bit back the tears beginning to prick her eyes.

3

The door was the same as it had been ten years ago when she left with the troupe. The windows were the same. The flowers were the same. The way the sun reflected off the roof at sunset was still the same. The finely manicured lawn was still the same. The wards around the house to prevent unwanted magic from being done were still the same. The grill out back was new, though, and so were the three cars in the driveway. Molly assumed the silver sedan was her mother's, the black Lexus her father's, and the little white one her sister's.

Molly pressed her lips together, trying to gather the courage to knock on the door, to step back into the role of obedient daughter she had abandoned ten years ago when she went away for a summer and never came back, to humble herself. She sat down on the front steps and inhaled deeply. Her head still throbbed with her hangover and she had run out of hangover potion on the bus. Snow fell lightly on the back of her neck, chilling her body. The wind beat against her thin jacket, making bumps raise on her skin. It was too cold to stay out here much longer.

She stood up and faced the black door. Her lips pressed together, she pressed the doorbell. She waited. Someone shuffled around inside, a few words were exchanged, and the door opened.

"Hello?" A young man asked, a young man she didn't know.

"Um…yeah…hi?" Molly said tentatively, beginning to shiver in the cold.

"What do you want?" he demanded.

"Oh, um…sorry, I must have the wrong house," she said, beginning to turn away. "Do you know, by any chance, where the Weasleys moved to?"

"This is the Weasley house."

"Oh, then who are you? Are my parents on vacation or something?"

"No..."

"Josh, who is it?" Molly's heart skipped a beat at the sound of her sister's voice.

"I…I don't know. She just showed up and…"

Lucy squeezed by the young man and froze.

"Molly?"

"Hey, Luce," Molly said, scratching her head. "Long time no see."

"What are you doing here?" Lucy demanded, stepping outside and closing the door behind her.

"Can we do this inside? It's kind of cold…"

"No, we can't do this inside!" Lucy shouted. "Where have you been?"

"I told you -- I traveled with the troupe."

"For ten years? It was supposed to be a summer job!"

"I know, I know. It got out of hand. But I'm here, now."

"Honestly, Molls?" Lucy asked, crossing her arms. She looked so different -- so much more like their father, so much older, more mature.

"What do you want me to say? I'm done with it."

"Why? There's no reason for it."

"I…I just stopped…"

"Stopped what? Avoiding us?"

"I wasn't avoiding you."

"The last time you wrote was five years ago, and even then it was only to tell us you couldn't make it to Grandma Fischer's funeral."

Molly's eyes turned away from Lucy's cold brown eyes. She focused on the gnome fishing off the side of the porch.

"You need to leave," Lucy said.

The door opened behind Lucy.

"Molly," their father said. "Come inside before you catch a cold. Lucy, help your mother with the dishes. Joshua is waiting in the kitchen for you."

He turned on his heel and went into the house. Lucy shot Molly a glare and proceeded to enter the kitchen. Molly dropped her bag by the front door, sure that her mother would not want her to drag the dirty, abused canvas sack through the house. She kicked off her beat-up trainers and followed her father to his study in her holey socks. Her father shut the door.

"What took you so long?" he asked, sitting behind his desk. Molly sat down on the couch as gracefully as she could manage, trying to come up with a suitable answer.

"I don't know," she admitted. "I just ran with it until it wasn't working anymore."

"So you come groveling back here?"

"I'm not groveling, father."

Her father squeezed his eyes closed and took off his glasses, his usual pain when talking with his oldest daughter coming through. Over the course of ten years, they had talked in person three times. Once in Italy, once in France, and once in London. All of them had ended up with Molly trashed and waking up in an unfamiliar bed. Her father knew it, too.

"Then what are you doing here?"

"I thought this was the logical place to come first."

"And the second?"

Her father rearranged some items on his desk.

"There is no second, is there?" He looked up at her with a condescending look in his eye. "I knew it. You never think things through, Molly. You never have. What you need is more discipline. Do you even have a plan?"

"Yes," she said firmly.

"And that would be…?"

"Get a job at the ministry…"

"On what credentials?"

Molly felt the red Weasley blush she managed to inherit burn her ears.

"My OWLs," she said, her voice smaller than she would have wanted it to be.

"They'll see ten years of running around doing nothing and put you in maintenance."

"We both know I have the second-best OWL scores."

"Fourth. Hugo and Lou also passed you."

"Good on them."

"You'd be better suited working for George."

"I'm not working at the joke shop."

Her father laughed.

"I'll find something, father. It isn't that big of a deal."

"Your sister is already head of the Department of Misuse of Muggle Artifacts, Molly. Hugo is ambassador to the United States. James, Fred, and Lou are all running their own joke shops. Victoire is the lead healer of the lycanthropy studies at St. Mungo's. Rose is assistant analyst to the Cannons. Albus is running a committee on the junior Wizengamot. Lily has been inducted into the Order of the Phoenix. Roxanne is running a beauty boutique. Flora is in her fourth year. Victoire, Rose, and Albus are married. Rose has three kids already. Victoire has two more. Dom, Fred, Lucy, and James are engaged. Hugo is dating. Roxanne is in a serious long-term relationship. Now, tell me, Molly, where do you fit into all of this?"

"What happened between Lily and Scorpius?" she asked, trying desperately to keep herself from going into a panic. All of this happened -- all of these accomplishments -- and she had missed all of them. And why? Because she had been wasting her life, her time, her money. Moments she will never get back. "I would have thought for sure they would have gotten back together."

"They never did," her father said stiffly.

"Hmmm…odd. Is that Josh kid who answered the door Lucy's fiancée?"

Molly struggled not to frown. She was talking differently. Fiancee? When did she ever say stuff like that? Where was the edgy language she had picked up in Paris? Is that her man? Isn't that what she would have said before she walked through the door of her parent's house? Isn't that who she was? Isn't that who she had become?

"Joshua's a nice boy," her father said. "He has a reliable job in your mother's SOCO office."

"He's a muggle?"

"You sound surprised."

"Well…it's just that Lucy was never really into muggle culture."

"She was never really interested in wizarding culture, either."

"That's true."

"She needs a minimally magic environment and Joshua is able to give it to her."

"Yeah…"

"So have you met anyone your trip?"

Molly glanced up at her father, his blue eyes matching hers.

"Is that what you're calling it? A 'trip'?"

"Is that a yes?"

"That's a no."

"Well, at least you had the wisdom to come with no strings attached," her father admitted, fiddling through his drawers. "Go take a shower. Throw on a load of laundry. No magic. Don't forget it. Your mother still hasn't warmed up to the idea of household magic."

"Fine."

"Your room is still the same, by the way. We haven't touched it," he said, standing up. "You'll find all your old clothes there, if they still fit."

"Thank you, father."

He nodded once, dismissing her, and she fetched her bag before slipping into the pristine bathroom.