Disclaimer- This is a work of fan fiction using characters from the Harry Potter world, which is trademarked by J. K. Rowling. I do not claim any ownership over any characters or the world of Harry Potter. The story I tell here is not part of J.K. Rowling's story canon (which is far better than anything I could write). I'm only borrowing some of her characters to practice fiction writing. The fanfiction story of How Molly Weasley Saved Britain is for entertainment only, I will make no money off of it, and is not part of the official story line.
Trigger Warnings: Some reference to past child neglect and abuse. Nothing graphic.
AN: I fired this off over the weekend, while working on finishing up chapters in other stories. It's complete at five chapters plus an epilogue, totaling roughly 13,000 words. Chapters 1-2 and 4-5 are Molly's POV. Chapter 3 is Harry's and the Epilogue is Bill's. I'll publish them every couple of days until they are all up. I'm trying to portray Molly as maternal, brave, action oriented, highly opinionated, hot tempered, and just a tad blind to her own hypocrisy.
Please let me know how I did. Thanks for reading.
Chapter 1
Molly Weasley tried to be patient as her twin terrors babbled on about how Harry had been held prisoner by his evil relatives. Really, she did.
But Fred and George were dancing on her last nerve with their nonsense. As if Dumbledore would allow the Boy Who Lived to be starved and held captive.
"You took your father's car," she said patiently, trying to stay focused. Well, patiently for her anyway. Everyone else in the room, including Harry, flinched back at the volume. "Are you aware of the crimes you've committed? How your carelessness might have cost your father his job?"
"But mum," said Fred, his voice rising to match hers. Or was it George? She was ashamed to say she'd lost track of which was which with any certainty years ago and they did nothing to alleviate her confusion. "They had bars on his window! And his room was horrible! They weren't feeding him at all! We had to save him!"
Molly was a woman who only had few rules when it came to her boys. She'd learned long ago that a Weasley boy viewed rules as something to be challenged. So she had only a few bright lines- eat everything on your plate, be inside before dark, bathe often (or at least often enough), and, last, but by no means least, never raise your voice to your mother.
Fred, or maybe, George, had just crossed a line. "Well, I never," she began, her face quickly turning red. "I thought I raised you better than that, Frederick Septimus Weasley! You don't raise your voice to me young man! . . .".
"But I'm George," he protested.
As if that mattered. Fred and George were literally peas in a pod. Where one went the other followed.
"And you're both grounded!" she half screamed, the windows rattling. "Go to your rooms and don't come out until I call for you!"
It hurt her to see both of her handsome terrors' faces drop, but they had to learn proper respect. She kept a hard eye on them both as they trudged up the stairs.
As soon as they took the turn at the first landing and vanished out of sight, she felt herself begin to calm. One problem taken care of. Now for the next.
The other problem was her youngest son, Ron, who was futilely trying to hide behind Harry. The messy, dark haired wizard was much smaller than her boy and, as a consequence, he was not a very effective shield.
"Ronald Bilius Weasley," she barked. "What do you have to say for yourself?"
He visibly swallowed. She could almost see his brain cells trying to manufacture a story that would save him from his brothers' fate. To her surprise, and Ron's relief, it wasn't her son that answered.
"I'm sorry to be a bother, Mrs. Weasley," the bespectacled young wizard whispered softly, his eyes on the floor. "It wasn't Ron's fault, or Fred and George's. I can go back to my aunt and uncle's if I'm too much of a bother."
What a polite young man. If only her sons behaved so. Well, the youngest half, anyway. Bill, Charlie and Percy had been nothing but polite.
She suppressed a niggling doubt that her eldest two, at least, had just been better at covering up their mischief. Or maybe she'd been less experienced as a parent and had not cottoned on as quickly as she did nowadays.
"Nonsense, Harry. You are always welcome," she said as she gathered the young boy into a hug. To her consternation, he stiffened momentarily before relaxing into it. Her hands were telling her that he was more bone than muscle. Boys were often skinny but Harry was much more so than a young boy his age should be.
She frowned. Fred and George couldn't have possibly been telling the truth about the boy being starved, could they?
Well, there was only one thing for that. A proper meal.
And maybe a dose of the Forge Special. She'd been looking for a reason to try out her most recent concoction, and now she had it.
"Well, let's get you fattened up," she half offered and half ordered as she took his arm- it was a twig with hardly any muscle mass, which set her maternal instincts on full alert; she expected 12 year old boys to be scrawny but there were limits- and guided him toward the kitchen.
Harry didn't resist. She noted that Ronnikins was following in his wake, looking relieved that he'd escaped her ire.
She smiled. She was proud of Ron, like she was proud of all of her sons. He encapsulated both the best and the worst of them. While he was tall, handsome and highly intelligent, he was also stubborn, lazy and prone to distraction.
All of her boys had that last problem: Bill and pretty girls, Charlie and his dragons, the twins and their pranks, and Ron and chess. Only Percy had managed to avoid it, though Molly thought maybe he could do with a bit of distraction now and then.
Maybe Bill could give him some pointers? Grandchildren didn't make themselves, after all.
She sat them both down and the table and began to pile left overs in front of them. It was late and she didn't feel like cooking. Plus it gave her a chance to clear some of her saved meals from the stasis box.
She didn't consider her family poor. Arthur was a good provider- provided his sons didn't get him sacked- but she was firmly of the waste not, want not, mindset. She always placed those portions of a meal that didn't make it onto a dinner plate under stasis, waiting for a hungry child to wander into her kitchen, demanding to be fed. That they would was a near certainty considering she had six sons, all of whom possessed voracious appetites.
Once the two boys began to eat, Ron shoveling food in his face so fast that you'd think she never fed him while Harry picked at his plate like he didn't know what to do with the mound of chicken, peas, and potatoes and gravy piled before him, she saw her chance to use her newest potion. She called it the Forge Special. Her twin terrors were deceivers of the highest order- which caused her to be both horrified and proud, in a strange sort of way- so she'd put her considerable potions skills to work.
The Forge Special was a weak blend of a Babbling Potion and Veritaserum. It suppressed any inhibition against speaking and disengaged the filter between brain and mouth which would allow something other than the truth to be said.
Just the thing to unravel the many headaches Fred and George caused her, including who was which.
She hadn't yet used it on her happy go lucky terrors, but Ron and Harry would make good test subjects. A drop in their milk- she didn't hold with pumpkin juice, growing boys needed protein, fat and calcium, not liquid sugar- and they would sing like canaries.
"Drink up," she commanded and beamed at them when they complied. Satisfied they'd taken a sufficient dose, she turned to Ron. "Why don't you tell me what happened?"
Ron's story was consistent with the twins, which perturbed her. Harry's was horrifying.
Locks on his door. Bars on his window. Fed only a few table scraps shoved through a catflap. A crazed house-elf tampering with his mail. And that was this summer alone.
When she inquired of his childhood, she nearly fainted with what came out of his mouth. Sleeping in a cupboard under the stairs. Worked like a slave. Beaten with a belt if he displayed any freakishness. Locked in his cupboard if he did too well in school. Hunted and beaten by his cousin and his friends. Told his parents were worthless drunks and layabouts who had been killed in a car accident.
Fed scraps, if that. The poor boy had to sneak food and often resorted to shifting through the trash to keep from starving. It was unforgivable.
Her mind froze momentarily when he stopped talking. She couldn't help but think his muggle relatives were insane. Did they want an Obscurial on their hands? Were they trying to kill themselves and blow up their entire neighborhood? And what was Dumbledore playing at? He, if anyone, should know better.
She finally woke from her stupor when she heard a sob coming from Harry. Tears were rolling down his face, his too small frame collapsed into his chair, his meal forgotten. Ron was looking at him with wide eyed shock, as if he couldn't believe what he had heard and what he was seeing.
Neither could she, really. Who in their right mind would think the Boy Who Lived would be treated so badly? By his flesh and blood, no less. But she trusted her potion work and knew Harry hadn't lied.
So she did the only thing she could. She gathered the messy haired wizard into her arms, lifting him bodily from his seat- he really was far too light- and placed him in her lap. "There, there," she murmured, "it will be alright. You'll never go back to that place. I promise."
If anything, her words made him cry even harder. So she did what she always did when her babies were hurting. She held him, and rocked him, and sang nonsense words until he fell asleep.
Somewhere along the way, Ron had burrowed into her side, holding her as she held Harry. It was only later that she noticed that she'd also been crying.
When Harry finally fell asleep in her arms, she looked down on her wide eyed son. "Not a word to anyone," she ordered in a hushed whisper, even as she couldn't resist giving her youngest boy a proud smile.
He was staring at his friend as if he'd never seen him before. After a moment, he lifted his head and caught her eye. "Not a peep, mum," he replied resolutely.
"Good. Then let's get the two of you in bed. I expect that Harry needs a nice lay in. You won't do anything to wake him until he's ready. Understood?"
Seeing him nod, she ruffled his head with a hand she'd extracted with great difficulty from the messy haired boy's clutches. A few moments later, she had them both safely tucked into bed.
It had been too easy to carry Harry up the flights of stairs. He really was too light. Well, some extra helpings at mealtimes and a regimen of nutrient potions should put that to rights, she decided, already calculating the ingredients she could use from her garden and what she'd have to buy from the apothecary. A few weeks, months at the most, and he'd be right as rain.
She contemplated her youngest boy's closed door. Though she trusted Ron, mostly as he seemed to understand the seriousness of the situation, she didn't trust the rest of her boisterous family to keep quiet. The stairway alone sounded like a rampaging herd of elephants when they descended for breakfast.
She cast a quick silencing charm followed by a one way locking charm into their door. It was the only way to ensure that they'd be able to sleep for as long as they wanted.
She had fond memories of those two charms. They were the only reason she and Arthur were able to enjoy any sort of personal time. Her children- who possessed far too little in way of boundaries and had no concept of personal space- viewed closed doors like rules, an invitation.
That done, she made herself a cup of tea as she considered her options.