Reappearance of Old Acquaintances and New Feelings (3)

Molly followed her old crush in a daze. She had no idea where they were going or why she was following him. The only thing she did know in fact was that it felt good to relinquish control to this able and caring man. Arthur had once been this attentive to her ... once upon a time ... but it had soon stopped. Molly heaved a sigh of regret and Colin stopped in his tracks, having picked up on the tiny sound.

"What is wrong, Molly? Since you walked into that park and crossed my way you looked thoughtful and ... I don't know if I'm out of line here but ... well, you looked sad," Colin asked softly, drawing Molly instinctively closer to him.

As a matter of fact, Colin had never been able to keep his eyes off Molly Weasley from the moment she had walked into his life. Her energy and drive had been phenomenal back then but here and now, so many years later, she only seemed to be a shadow of herself, a weary, old, and tired woman. Her soft brown eyes didn't spark anymore and her smiles seemed forced and almost painful. Colin remembered that he had already noticed these changes in her back at the hospital when her husband had had open-heart-surgery. Back then Colin had written it off to the worry for her husband and the strain of keeping her seven children in check.

Now it seemed to be a different kind of fatigue ... now it seemed to be fatal ... being tired of life ... wanting to escape.

He had to protect her ... even if it meant from herself or her husband. Colin wanted to do everything in his power to bring back that beautiful smile, that whole-hearted laughter, her joie de vivre.

oOoOoOo

Minerva returned to Headquarters in the hope of finding Molly here and maybe talk like rational adults now that they both had had time to calm down again and bring their emotions under control ... as much as one could keep emotions under control when it concerned adultery and love.

When she entered her house, she encountered Arthur instead of his spouse. Shyly she hid her face, blushing furiously. Awkwardly she stammered an excuse and tried to slip away. Arthur, though, moved forward, grasping her hand in his bigger one.

"Minerva, where were you? And have you seen Molly?" Arthur asked in a chocking voice. He was genuinely worried ... for his wife but also for the mother of his oldest daughter. "Sarah didn't know where you went. She was worried for you," he scolded her, sounding very much like a husband.

Minerva's eyes filled with tears. Yes, he sounded like a husband, but he wasn't her husband. He was Molly's.

Arthur misinterpreted her tears. "I'm sorry I spoke so harshly," he mumbled, coming closer to Minerva and wrapping his arms around her. Comforting her with softly-spoken words, he drew her closer still and whispered in her ear, "You scared us all when you suddenly disappeared. You know you shouldn't do that ... not with death-eaters about."

Minerva heard the words but they didn't register in her mind. She was too distracted by his arm around her waist and his other hand tangling gently in her hair. She noticed the way her body fit with his. Her head was on the level of his shoulder, comfortably snuggling against his neck and cheek. She had the perfect height to fit him. Arthur always had to bend in half to accommodate Molly. Without her volition her arms snaked around his waist and she leaned heavily against him. It felt good to relinquish control to this able and caring man.

Minerva tipped her head back and slowly lifted herself onto tiptoes, raising herself slightly. She reached up and cupped his cheek in her hand then leaned forward and pressed her lips to his.

Arthur leaned back against the wall, arms folded. He looked down at the crown of her raven-black, bowed head in exasperation. First she kissed him, inviting him to God alone knew what else with it, and then she was suddenly too shy to face him.

"Oh, like that, is it?" he demanded. "And whose idea was that? Yours, or our daughter's?"

"Does it matter?" She was composed, her hands perfectly still in front of her lap, her dark hair smooth in its bun.

He shook his head and bent forward. "No, it doesn't matter, because it's not going to happen. I appreciate your meaning, but ..."

His speech was interrupted by her kiss. Her lips were as soft as they looked and he remembered. He grasped her firmly by both wrists and pushed her away from him.

"No!" he said. "It isn't proper, and I don't want to do it."

He was uncomfortably aware that his body did not agree at all with his assessments of propriety, and still more uncomfortable at the knowledge that his trousers, too small and worn thin, made the magnitude of the disagreement obvious to anyone who cared to look. The slight smile curving those full, sweet lips suggested that she was looking.

He turned her toward the door and gave her a light push, to which she responded by stepping aside and reaching behind her for the fastenings to her skirt.

"Don't do that!" he exclaimed.

"How d'ye want to stop me?" she asked, stepping out of the garment and folding it tidily over the single chair. Her slender fingers went to the laces of her bodice.

"If you won't leave, then I'll have to," he replied with decision. He whirled on his heel and headed for the door, when he heard her voice behind him.

"Arthur!" she said.

He stopped, but did not turn around.

"It wasn't Sarah's idea. It is mine. Turn around."

He turned, reluctantly. She stood barefoot in her undergarments, her hair loose over her shoulders. She was thin, but her breasts were larger than he had thought, and the nipples showed prominently through the fabric. He closed his eyes.

He felt a light touch on his arm, and willed himself to stand still.

"I know well enough what you're thinking," she said, "for I saw your wife, and I know how it was between the two of you. I never had that," she added, in a softer voice, "not with any of my few lovers. But I know the look of a true love, and it's not in my mind to make you feel you've betrayed it."

The touch, feather-light, moved to his cheek, and the thumb traced the groove that ran from nose to mouth.

"What I want," she said quietly, "is to give you something different. Something less, maybe, but something you can use, something to keep you whole. I know you will go back to Molly, but things between you will change – they already have. This is my good-bye present to you." He heard her draw breath, and the touch on his face lifted away.

"You've given me my daughter. Will you not let me give you this small thing in return?"

He felt tears sting his eyelids. The weightless touch moved across his face, wiping the moisture from his eyes, smoothing the roughness of his hair. He lifted his arms, and reached out. She stepped inside his embrace, as neatly and simply as she had all those years before.

"I ... hope I don't disappoint," he said, suddenly shy.

"So do I," she said, with a tiny smile. "But I'm sure we won't."

oOoOoOo

It was a restless night. Too tired to stay awake a moment longer, Minerva was too happy to fall soundly asleep. Perhaps she was afraid Arthur would vanish if she slept. Perhaps he felt the same. They lay close together, not awake, but too aware of each other to sleep deeply. She felt every small twitch of his muscles, every movement of his breathing, and knew he was likewise aware of her.

Half-dozing, they turned and moved together, always touching, in a sleepy, slow-motion ballet, learning in silence the language of their bodies. Somewhere in the deep, quiet hours of the night, he turned to her without a word, and she to him, and they made love to each other in a slow, unspeaking tenderness that left them lying still at last, in possession of each other's secrets.

Soft as a moth flying in the dark, her hand skimmed his chest, and found the thin deep runnel of the scar. Her fingers traced its invisible length and paused, with the barest of touches at its end.

His head turned on the pillow, his features lost in darkness, and his lips brushed hers, light as the touch of an insect's wing. He turned onto his back, shifting her next to him, his hand resting heavy on the curve of her thigh, keeping her close.

Sometime later, she felt him shift again, and turn the bedclothes back a little way. A cool draft played across her forearm; the tiny hairs prickled upright, and then flattened beneath the warmth of his touch. She opened her eyes to find him turned on his side, absorbed in the sight of her hand. It lay still on the quilt, a carved white thing, all the bones and tendons chalked in gray as the room began its imperceptible shift from night to day.

"Draw her for me," he whispered, head bent as he gently traced the shapes of her fingers, long and ghostly beneath the darkness of his own touch. "What has she of you, of me? Can you tell me? Are her hands like yours, Minerva, or mine? Draw her for me, let me see her." He laid his own hand down beside hers. The fingers were straight and flat-jointed, the nails clipped short, square and clean.

"Like mine," she said. Her voice was low and hoarse with waking, barely loud enough to register above the drumming of the rain outside. The house beneath was silent. She raised the fingers of her immobile hand an inch in illustration. "She has long, slim hands like mine – but bigger than mine, broad across the backs, and a deep curve at the outside, near the wrist – like that. Like yours; she has a pulse just there, where you do." She touched the spot where a vein crossed the curve of his radius, just where the wrist joins the hand. He was so still she could feel his heartbeat under her fingertip. "Her nails are like yours; square, not oval like mine. But she has the crooked little finger on her right hand that I have," she said, lifting it. "My mother had it, too." She laid the hand with the crooked finger on his, then lifted it to his face.

"She has this line," she said softly, tracing the bold sweep from temple to cheek. "Your eyes, exactly, and those lashes and brows. A McGonagall nose. Her mouth is more like mine, too, with a full bottom lip, but it's wide, like yours. A pointed chin, like mine, but stronger. She's a big girl – nearly six feet tall." She felt his start of astonishment, and nudged him gently, knee to knee. "She has long legs, like yours, but very feminine, kind of like mine."

"And has she that small blue vein just there?" His hand touched her face, thumb tender in the hollow of her temple. "And ears like tiny wings, Minerva?"

"She always complained about her ears – said they stuck out," she said, feeling the tears sting her eyes as Sarah came suddenly to life between them.

"They're pierced. You don't mind, do you?" she said, talking fast to keep the tears at bay. "She wanted to do it, and I let her, when she was sixteen. Mine were; it didn't seem right to say she couldn't when I did, and her friends all did, and I didn't – didn't want ..."

"You were right," he said, interrupting the flow of half-hysterical words. "You did fine," he repeated, softly but firmly, holding her close. "You were a wonderful mother, I know it."

She was crying, quite soundlessly, shaking against him. He held her gently, stroking her back and murmuring. "You did well," he kept saying. "You did right." And after a little while, she stopped crying. He sighed deeply, and in an instant was asleep. In another, Minerva fell asleep herself, her last sight his wide, sweet mouth, relaxed in sleep, half-smiling.