A/N: This will actually not be a oneshot. I promise. x
She wakes up, and the house is empty. She doesn't move, listening to the silence – but no, because there is no silence, because there is never silence. There are birds, croaking to one another in the garden, and there is the clock ticking, and somewhere, there is a car moving on gravel. The heating isn't working properly, and her bed is cold. She pulls her duvet closer to her, as if pulling hard enough will tug it into her mind and make it smother all of her misgivings; except that they aren't misgivings, exactly, more that knowledge that when she stops trying not to think, she will remember. She hates remembering. Not because it's painful, but because it makes her nostalgic. The sense of missing something, like her first-year homesickness back at school, will haunt her throughout the day: and it's so irritating, so impossible to shake off. Molly is not in danger of buckling under. She does not feel the urge to break down and weep, and she does not wonder what the point in her life is. She is too practical for any of these things. It's just an annoyance – something which she could do without. For the first time since Arthur and the children, Molly Weasley has an identity of her very own. Not 'mother'. Not 'wife'. And she has only herself to look after; but, somehow, she's harder work than her children ever were. She doesn't want to think of only herself. She isn't used to it.
So she steals a new tag, a new identity – old woman. And then she is allowed to drift aimlessly around the house; then she is allowed to clean and redecorate just for something to do; then she is allowed to make herself cocoa when there's nobody else there, and to sit by the window and drink it as she stares blankly at the scenery. It's so much easier, she's discovered. But you never wanted to do things the easy way, Arthur would say, bewildered, and he would give her the I-don't-understand look which she hasn't seen since they first met. But he isn't here to meet this Molly, whose life is full of ticking clocks and cold mattresses, who sits and drinks hot chocolate in the empty silence and who has quietly given up on what she used to be. (She always wonders at the fact that nobody seems to have noticed. George, at least–! But they've all changed, haven't they? And she can't expect them to pay the sort of attention to her that they used to. Not now.)
She dresses slowly, stepping into the dress and pulling it so that it covers her body. Molly stopped paying undue attention to her appearance once the twins were born, more or less, but one of her luxuries these past few months has been dresses. They are soft and pale, the dresses which she delights in. They touch her skin lightly as she puts them on and feel, once on, as if they aren't there at all. They add to her feeling of vagueness, of being light enough to float away – it's almost true. Even if none of her children have noticed changes in her personality, nearly all of them have noticed (and subsequently commented on) the change in her figure. Percy's response, particularly, was inspired: Goodness, you look awful, Mum. (This had come approximately thirty seconds after she'd opened the door to find him, unexpectedly, there; she'd merely stepped towards the living room in response, walking away from his words.)
When Ginny had asked her, though, she'd replied: I didn't mean to lose the weight. But how can she explain properly? They would never understand. Meals are too precise for her, too careful. They require her to sit down at the table on her own, and to pick up her family's cutlery (and the amount of childish warfare which has involved these very utensils!), and to eat with only the noise of the steel clattering against her plate and the endless, desperate clock. And she will remember, because she never seems to stop remembering. She will set the chipped plate on the table and remember throwing it at the wall, and she will admire herself for managing to work up the requisite anger; she will go over the old memories and not regret them, because she never seems to regret them, but wish herself back there. She will feel the same frustration, as always, at herself: and she will stop thinking, because that is the only way to stop remembering.
She never entirely blocks out thought. Instead, she does the simple, basic, getting-to-sleep tasks; except that she isn't trying to fall asleep, just trying to fill the endless stretch of time in front of her. She counts sheep, walking around her house without any purpose, and in a way it seems to help. Sometimes she turns the radio on, so that the singing can block out the oppressive silence all around her, and occasionally she irons and sings along and feels just like she used to. But the channel always plays the same songs, and she grows sick of them quickly. She's scared that she will become sick of all of them and have nothing more to listen to, so she listens to the radio less and less.
Once she is dressed, Molly steps out into the garden. She waters the plants, closes her eyes, soaks in the sunlight. It feels good on her face. As she walks back into the house the phone begins to ring, and she rushes to answer it. Bill. She smiles widely, begins to gabble down the phone. She is in the dining room, which is the room nearest the garden, and the sun from outside streams through the window and illuminates her. She looks perfect, for a moment: talking happily, shining from the light and the conversation. But then she turns away a little, moves, and a shadow sneaks over her.
"Me?" she says, incredulously, and she laughs down the phone. "Oh, Bill, I'm fine."
A while later, she puts down the phone. She consults the clock – quarter-past one.
She feels as if she has been awake for days.