Once again, I apologize for my failure to update in a timely fashion due to my lack of internet.

This song rips my heart out.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything in the Harry Potter universe, nor Jason Robert Brown's lyrics.

Flagmaker, 1775

The wise woman does what she knows
If it's fighting, she fights
If it's sewing, she sews

This house that was not hers was too quiet. Quiet itself did not usually bother her, but this quiet did. There was too much of it. She could hear the house move and sigh to itself, and the clock tick in the hall. She was alone in the hostile house, with her husband and her children and her friends out there in the even more hostile world. It did not sit well with her at all.

Molly had put cubes of beef and vegetables in a pot to stew, and washed up the dishes she'd dirtied. Then she decided that fresh bread would go perfectly with the stew, and set about to make some by hand. Once the bread had risen and been put in the oven, she'd cleaned the kitchen again, carefully wiping up dustings of flour on the countertops. She'd swept the floor and put away the bowls and measuring cups, and sat waiting for the bread to bake. She caught herself staring hard at the oven, then saw her reflection and laughed.

"If there were a churn, I'd find myself making fresh butter next," she said aloud.

With the roof leaking
And the walls wetter
And the night as black as pitch
With the wind shrieking
And his last letter
Says he's fighting in a ditch
Then the candle flickers
And the river bickers
What else can you do but stitch

Some of her children—and some of the Order, she suspected—thought of her as nothing more than a mother. Those who had always known her as Molly Weasley, who had always seen her as pregnant or carting about a child or both at once, thought that she could do nothing other than be a mother. And she herself would admit that she was an excellent mother. Although their house was too small for a family of nine (plus guests), it was spotless. And although there wasn't enough money to buy each child new robes, she knew how to make her stitches tiny and nearly invisible. She reckoned she knew about letting out and taking up hems better than any mother, magical or Muggle, in all England. And she could heal a scrape with one hand and make a sandwich with the other while her eyes were closed. She was a good mother.

For the time being, that was her role and her service to the cause. For the time being, her place was in this house, keeping it tidy, clean, and ready. Keeping nourishing food in the cupboards and on the table, keeping the beds made and quiet, keeping bandages rolled and vials of potions full, keeping the wards up. Anyone who came to the house would find whatever they needed; the hungry would be fed, the injured would be tended to, the tired would find rest. For the time being, that was Molly Weasley's job, and one that she was, I beg your pardon, bloody good at.

But the second they needed her outside the house, she would join the battle. She would willingly join the fight to protect what she loved, what she believed in. By that she did not merely mean her children and her husband, although for any one of them she would give her own life. She did not mean the children she loved as dearly as her own, or her tidy house. She would fight to the death for good. It was such a nebulous concept, really; if You-Know-Who was evil, then their side and what they fought for was surely good. But, she thought firmly, no one deserved to die for the way they were born. It was just a... silly thing to kill someone over, honestly.

One more star, one more stripe
'Til this bloodshed's finally through
One more star, one more stripe
'Til they come back home to you
One more star, one more stripe
When there's nothing you can do

Until such time as they needed her to fight, she would remain here, in this silent old house, where she would do her best to keep from going mad. One could only sweep the floor so many times. There was a wireless, but it disturbed Mrs. Black's portrait, and Molly didn't feel up to wrangling with that frightful old woman. So she sat in the silence, feeling it swell up and throb against the walls until she wanted to scream.

The silence gave her too much time to think. She could too easily picture the danger that her children were facing. She imagined Death Eaters lurking around every corner they would turn, and she saw them dead, calling out for her. It was just too much, and Molly could not let herself become hysterical all alone in the quiet house. She needed to save her energy for when they came home, when the house was full again with children bickering and people needing sandwiches and tea and Tonks upending things every which way she turned.

It would be cold soon, and Lupin looked like he could do with a nice warm sweater. Molly picked up her needles and a ball of yarn and began to knit.

If they take all the things
That define what you were and are
One more star...