Disclaimer: Harry Potter isn't mine.

Somewhere between a fateful Halloween night and this dreary sunset on a chill spring day my children grew. Most born during the time of war, one born at its end. For years I watched them grow.

I know the world sees me as a slightly frumpy, soft, woman whose sole goal in life is to feed her overly large brood. I may be domestic in nature, but nature also gave me enough wits and talent to know what is the state of the world. Having seven children gave me a mother's intuition. Those two make a formidable combination which in good times helped keep those twins in check. Now, in the dark times, it causes nothing but worries and fears.

Like the mother of every soldier gone to war, I sit at home, doing what I can for the side I believe to be right. I watched my sons go to do their part. Each found a place. Some in other countries, some in the Ministry, some in the Order. One though, the youngest, went to war with the name hero already attached to his name.

I know what happens to heroes. Some come home and others become the stuff of legends. Legends don't come home to their mothers. They become songs and stories that are told to children of days long ago. This mother wants her hero to come home.

Then there is the one who stayed. Though she may very well have gone with her brother to join the three heroes. While her body is present and safe in this lopsided home, her heart and soul travels with the boy she loves. I know that look in her eye and I know the steel in her voice. It was the same look and tone found in my eye and voice when I married her father all those years ago.

I see in her so much of myself and it frightens me. I know what would happen to me if anything should happen to Arthur. He is my life and our lives are bound. Even if I went on living, my soul would go with him. I know my daughter feels the same deep bond to her love. If he should perish, the very essence of my only little girl would vanish. She would become a shell and I doubt she would ever fully recover. Strong though she may be, she has put all her strength into this love.

In the darkness my husband's voice comes to me. He has long been in bed as I sit by the window watching and waiting.

"Molly, come sleep. Today is done and tomorrow will come. Let it come in peace. Come dear."

When only a faint glow filtered through the light curtains I heard a noise below stairs. There was first the noise of a familiar footfall on the stair. Then there was the telltale moan of the bad step. I heard a muffled exclamation followed by a far less quiet, "Honestly, Ron, even in your mother's home you can't manage to stop swearing!" It was in that moment between a familiar annoyance and a young woman's scolding that I knew the future was bright as the voice of my son as he cracked open our door and said, "Mum, Dad, we're home." The new day came in peace.