AN: Written for The Wand Wood Challenge/Competition Prompt: Apple - write about a close family.

AND

written for the Test Your Limits Competition Round 2

PROMPT: Cocytus

Cocytus is the river of Wailing where lost souls wander, crying and screaming.

For this round you will be writing about the single most painful moment of a character's existence. (Either physically or emotionally.)

Bonus Prompts:

Dialogue: "I'd rather swallow broken glass." (15 pts)

Tagline: "Because I'm your mother, and what I say goes." (10 pts) [must be dialogue]

Character: Rita Skeeter (15 pts)

Molly Weasley had survived through two wars and the intervening years, but at that moment she felt as though she had been physically pulled apart. She had thought that the first war had been hard, but she hadn't fought in that one, she had had too many young children to focus on to be much help to the order the first time around. Her brothers had fought with the order during the first war and had lost their lives, but looking after seven children, especially during a war had meant that she had no time to let the loss really affect her. When little Harry Potter had destroyed the Dark Lord though and they had fallen into a time of relative peace she had taken the time to celebrate her brother's lives and mourn their deaths. She had been grateful that her children and husband had all survived unscathed, but had become even more protective of them all since her brothers' death.

Time had passed between the two wars with Voldemort, in which time her children had all grown up; Bill and Charlie pursuing dangerous careers with the Goblins and Dragons respectively, and Percy leaving the family to follow his own path as an aid to the Minister of Magic. It had hurt when he had left, not believing like the rest of her family that the madness of war was about to consume them all once again. She had never felt anything like it before, the death of her brothers had been painful, but her own sons own disownment and shunning of them hurt more. Her brothers hadn't wished to be taken from her, but her own son no longer wished to have her in his life. That had been the most painful moment of her life until today, until the Battle of Hogwarts.

Molly had spent the months since her eldest son Bill's wedding worrying about her children, and she included Harry and Hermione in that count, either in Hogwarts or running around trying to avoid detection from Voldemort and his forces. Ginny was in Hogwarts with the Carrow twins as her teachers and Snape as her Headmaster, the man who had killed someone who had trusted him fully. Molly couldn't believe that she had let her daughter go back, but she had to, otherwise they may have looked at her family even more closely than they already were. They may have found out that Ron wasn't really ill, and then tortured her family for his whereabouts as everyone knows that he would be with Harry if he could be.

They had gotten occasional messages from Ginny through Aberforth, and believed that she was doing her best not to draw attention to herself and stay safe. Today though she had almost lost her little girl to Bellatrix Lestrange, Molly had almost frozen with fear as she saw the other witch turn her wand on her baby, but she wasn't a Gryffindor for nothing. Now Molly wasn't vindictive, but she was happy to remove that witch from the picture, to protect her family. Molly lived for her family, everything she did was for her husband and children.

She had wept when she heard Voldemort say that Harry was dead, he was as much her child as those she had borne herself, but he wasn't he was alive and she had been so glad, but at the same time she felt as though she was being ripped into two, her Fred was gone. She longed to look after him, to bring her little mischief maker back to her, but she knew that he was gone. She looked for her other mischief maker, hunched over his brother, muttering to him, and she tried to gather her resolve. Her family needed her, George needed her, the loss of a twin would be felt keenly.

Molly hissed and straightened as she heard a voice behind her that she would rather never hear again. Rita Skeeter was stood just behind her, her acid green quill poised to put to parchment. "Molly Weasley, can I have a few words on how it feels to rid the world of the evil that is Bellatrix Lestrange, at great personal loss."

Molly just glared at her, "I'd rather swallow broken glass."

Molly turned her back on the awful woman and returned to her family, she needed to get them out of there and away from the press. They had things to put in order for Fred, he deserved a proper send off, not just for him, but for them as well. She tried to ignore her own pain at his loss as she started directing her children like the troops they had been in a war that should have been over long before their birth.

She shared a look with her husband and he nodded before going to levitate Fred. George began to protest and Molly began to move him away and out of the hall. "Home." She said quietly to him.

He looked at her with devastation that he couldn't take Fred with him, his eyes plainly asking why.

She looked him straight in the eye, giving him a weak smile, she repeated a line he and his brother had heard often from her and never dared argue with. "Because I'm your mother, and what I say goes."