Molly stood mired in the muddy, wooded lane, cold rain dripping from the ends of her hair, coursing down her face. Aunt Muriel would have said she looked like a drowned rat. She pushed her sopping hair out of her eyes and blinked through the rain. Yes, she had seen it correctly. Arthur Weasley had just arrived in his Ford Anglia. He had thrown its door open and he was trotting through the mud, tearing off his jacket in spite of the downpour.

"Stars, Molly!" he was calling. "What are you doing out here in Wiltshire? What's happened to your wand?"

As he reached her, he draped his jacket over her shoulders. Its flannel lining was still infused with the heat of him, and it was the only warmth she had. As she went to thank him, she surprised them both by bursting into tears.

Arthur dropped an arm around her. "Come here, you're freezing. Look at your shoes. You've been walking for miles like this, haven't you?"

She still couldn't answer, gasping on sobs.

"Has – anyone – hurt you?" he said, alarmed, glancing up and down the road.

She shook her head. "Just cold," she hiccoughed.

He was pulling the car's passenger door open and easing her inside. "Get settled in there. I think I put our picnic blanket in the boot. I'll fetch it. You get those shoes off."

The door closed behind him, so heavy it always sounded like it had been slammed. Finally out of the rain, Molly breathed through the last of her tears. Poor Arthur, greeted with thanks like that.

With a shuddering sigh she wrenched her shoes off to see that her tights were a dead loss, torn and saturated with mud. Peeling them off, she dropped them with a squelch on the car's mat. It was such a relief she fought her way out of her drenched jumper and her clinging, transparent white shirt too. She pulled Arthur's jacket close around herself, shivering, still fully dressed but with just her navy camisole for a top and her wool skirt for the bottom. The jacket was large enough for her to curl her entire body inside of it. Her hands clamped over her toes, no heat between them.

That was how Arthur found her, tiny, compact, her wet head all he could see of her. He crashed onto the seat beside her, fumbling with the blanket. "There isn't much bulk to it, I'm afraid. But once we get it around you, you should be able to charge up some heat, especially if you keep trembling like that. Did you know that's how shivering works? It's your muscles burning energy to produce heat. I read it in a Muggle medical textbook."

Arthur passed the blanket behind her, draping it over her like a cloak, pressing it to her arms with the palms of his hands. "Is it any better?" he said, frowning as she continued to shiver.

She gave her head a single shake. "It's only warm where you're touching me."

Arthur gulped. "Oh – "

"Sorry, Arthur, but – " Her arms darted out from inside the jacket and clasped themselves around his torso. "You're so warm. And I don't think I've ever been so cold in my life."

His jacket was mashed between them, keeping her legs and feet covered. The blanket stayed on her shoulders, enfolding both Molly and Arthur now, their fronts pressed together, the heat of his pounding heart burning against her. It wasn't until he rubbed his hands against her back beneath the blanket that Arthur realized how little she was now wearing.

He gave a concerned hum and sat back a little.

"It's alright," she said, holding him tighter, still shivering. "I'm decent enough. Pretend you found me at the beach in a very odd bathing costume."

"Right. Like a mermaid," he said.

Molly scoffed. "Thanks."

"No, no. Not like one of the Hogwarts mermaids," he rushed to say. "Like a mermaid from Denmark. Have you seen them? They're lovely. Even Muggles like them. I've heard there are Danish mermaids with proper ginger hair and everything."

For the first time since he'd found her that day, Molly laughed.

It was what Arthur needed to hear for him to sigh and settle in, hefting her to sit in his lap, her back against his front, one arm around her waist.

She sighed, nestling closer. "My hair and skirt are getting your clothes wet."

His free hand smoothed her hair behind her ear, clearing a space for his chin to drop onto her shoulder. It drew her back to lean her head against his. "A little dampness is nothing," he said. "I came running because I wanted to help, whatever the cost."

Beneath the blanket, his hand had found her icy fingers. She raised his hand with hers and blew on it with her warm breath while he watched from over her shoulder. Completely transfixed at the sight of her fingers entwined with his, Arthur was quiet, not asking questions anymore, but still entitled to an explanation after coming all this way and finding her like this. Neither of them had said the name "Malfoy" yet, but she felt like he understood. If they were in Wiltshire, he might have seen Malfoy's manor house from the air.

Her body moved with Arthur's as he drew a deep breath. "Sorry I took so long to get here," he said. "I had a mishap with my wand today and didn't trust it to apparate safely. So I Floo-ed to Uncle Bilius's for the car and then blew the Invisibility Booster out flying it faster than it's ever gone before."

"Oh dear," she said. "What's the trouble with your wand? Wouldn't surprise me if that was my fault too."

He squeezed her hand. "It's likely no trouble at all. Probably just a bad prank of Potter's. Don't ask. But I didn't want to risk it right when you needed me."

When he finished speaking, he rested his face on her cold bare shoulder again, only it wasn't the hard ridge of his chin against her now. It was something softer and warmer, maybe his closed mouth and the tip of his nose. She wondered if he realized he was doing it, or if it was just more of his accidentally too intimate behaviour.

She cleared her throat. "No invisibility. So we'll need to wait here until after dark? When no one will be able to see the car flying away?"

Arthur lifted his mouth. "Yeah." And then instead of resting his face on her shoulder again, he opened his mouth and breathed on her chilly, freckled skin, warming it with his lips close enough for her to feel them brush against her. In spite of the warmth, she shivered all the way to the back of her knee.

Molly turned her face toward him, tense, eyes closed. The change seemed to jolt him awake to what he'd been doing to her, and he snapped his jaw shut.

"Sorry – Molly, I'm sorry. You were still cold and – I wasn't thinking. And as soon as I stop thinking with you, it all gets – "

"You don't need to be sorry," she said, leaning her forehead into his cheek. She could hear his breaths, fast and shallow. "You don't need to be sorry as long as you mean it."

He sighed again. "I mean it. Every time I've touched you, and especially when I kissed you, I meant it, just like this."

She opened her eyes. Even knowing she was red-head splotchy from crying and freezing, she turned her face up to his, letting him see her, finding those blue eyes. She was glad to be stuck with him, alone, close. His gaze slipped from her eyes, and she watched it track down to her mouth. His throat bobbed, his bottom lip quivered slightly.

She kissed him, craning over her own shoulder, thrilling at his response, the ecstatic gasp, his forward surge to meet her. Their backward angle meant the latch wasn't quite as perfect a fit as their first kiss in the pub, but this time they were by themselves, and his warmth alone was still the best feeling in the world to her. The kiss was soft and slow as they searched for each other, melting together, gathering momentum. There was still a chill in her skin and Arthur moved his mouth to better warm her lips. He began by wetting his own which, naturally, flicked his tongue into the front of her mouth.

With that she slid off his lap to kneel beside him on the Anglia's bench front seat. She leaned into his gentle worshipfulness. Though it was perfect in its way, there was more, and she wanted that too. It broke into something wilder, deeper as she kissed him face to face. Arthur followed, taking her in, clinging to her as she moved, keeping her close, his fingers splayed on her shoulder blade, somehow working themselves beneath one thin strap of her camisole. She answered by slipping her arms between his jumper and his T-shirt.

He was so infinitely sweet, so careful and caring, but so heated all at the same time. She was half dressed and pouncing on him, stranded with him in the middle of nowhere. Her hands roved over the thin fabric covering his lean chest and stomach. If he pushed her, in the vulnerable state she was in, stars only knew when and if she'd make him stop. But she'd never snogged anyone she trusted this much before. And that trust, it turned out, was maddeningly seductive.

Or was that just his neck, the one she'd spent all day in class watching so longingly? She broke from his mouth and kissed his throat where it met his shoulder. Her mouth was hot now, and Arthur groaned under it. His long fingers threaded into her damp hair, his hand palming the back of her head.

But then his voice was sputtering into words. "Molly, wait," he said.

She sat back with a click, opening her eyes to the sight of the tousled, kiss-drunk young man she'd been ravishing. She was warm enough to blush again. "Sorry," she said. "I did mean it, but…"

"It's – it's far more than fine. All of it. I just need to be sure," he said, his hand drifting out of her hair to caress her face. "You're my girl now, for real, aren't you?"

She fell back from her knees, sitting on her feet. "I am if you'll have someone who was dragged out of the forest, asked to be a Death Eater's mistress until his fiancee grows up, threatened by his beast of a father, and then abandoned in the rain without her wand."

Arthur's face hardened, twisting into an enraged expression she hadn't known he was capable of. "He just left you there?"

"His father forced him – "

"Still, he didn't send anyone back with your wand so you could get yourself home? One of his cronies, or an elf, an owl? Were they trying to drown you?"

She hushed him. "No. And honestly, he might have come back himself, eventually," she said. "Maybe that's why I didn't wait. I ran away. I suppose I didn't want it to be Lucius that found me. I must have wanted it to be you."

He didn't speak an answer but crushed her to him. "Of course I want you too," Arthur said. "And those vile people are nothing to us. Nothing any of them does or says or wants has anything to do with us. Not anymore."

Molly buried her face in his shoulder now, worried she might cry again, but so very relieved.

"And I've figured out what to call this natural feeling I get with you," he went on. "Reg was right. It's destiny – mine and yours and more than that, a magical quantity of destinies – like seven destinies."

She laughed, looking up at as he raved. "What are you on about?"

"All I'm saying is that I'm happy," he said, his mouth tickling as he spoke so near her ear.

"And you're not waiting for Mary Elizabeth?" she said, veering away before he could kiss her ear.

Arthur huffed. "Mary? No. In fact, Mary is with Reg now. It was them that sent me to find you in the library yesterday."

"Oh," Molly sang as Arthur traced her brow with the end of his nose. "I am genuinely pleased to hear that. Good for them."

And just as he thought Molly might truly have been finished snogging him for the moment, she linked her arms around his neck and threw herself onto her back, catching him unguarded and pulling his torso down on top of hers.

"Oof," he said, scrambling to brace himself to keep from squashing her.

But she liked to be kept down with his weight, and she held on, grinning up at him, shrugging. "Stay close, Weasley. It's warmer this way."

Arthur was fussing with her covers. "You've gone and bared your shoulder again," he scolded, brushing it with his fingertips. "It's not that they aren't beautiful, but you're going to get chilled again."

She blinked at him. "You think my shoulders are nice?"

Arthur cleared his throat, smoothed his thumb in a slow arc along her shoulder's curve. "Nice is not the word."

Her eyes were wide, but not quite innocent. "What is it then? Aunt Muriel says my shoulders have the shape of pudgy little baby heads."

Arthur gave a low laugh. "I'm all for babies but… No, these are – I mean, I think I just proved they're irresistibile. Alluring as anything. I'll never get used to it."

"You'd better not," she said, guiding his face to rest on her shoulder again. "You're all for babies," she repeated. "Are you really, Arthur?"

He shrugged. "Sure, some day."

"I am too. I want a boy and a girl," Molly said. "I know what they'll be called and everything. My parents were William and Ginevra but they went by Will and Evvie. So I'll name my two the same and call them Bill and Ginny."

"Bill and Ginny," Arthur murmured against her skin. "What if they're both boys?"

"Easy," she said, her fingers combing through the thick hair at the back of his head. "Dad's middle name was Charles. Boy two can be Charlie. Then Ginny can be my third."

Arthur propped himself on his elbow, smirking, teasing her. "What if your third is a boy too? I'm the third of three boys. It happens."

She batted at his chest. "Something after Uncle Ignatius then. But not as a first name. No Iggy."

"And what about the fourth boy?"

She held his face in both her hands. "Now you're being ridiculous. Next you'll be asking what I'd do if they were twin boys."

"Aren't your brothers twins?" he asked, coming closer, nose to nose as she lay beneath him.

"No, but close enough to be good as," she said. "And what a time to bring up my brothers. I'm sure they'd be delighted to see us like this."

"What have they got to complain about?" Arthur said, collapsing on her, nuzzling her neck. "I'm serious about this. We just named our first four children, for stars' sake."

"We did not. You expressed no opinion of your own."

"I don't need one. You can do as you like. But I will say William Arthur has a nice ring to it."

"Arthur Weasley, it is our first day – "

"And I'm already happy to take full responsibility," he said, tickling her ear with his breath until she squealed, twisting beneath him, their hands grappling with each other.

He left off teasing her ear, kissing her lips again, less shy than before, still trustworthy but volatile. Molly wriggled from underneath him, lying beside him, holding tight to him to keep from falling off the seat, her foot hooked around his leg as she kissed and kissed him.

By the time they sat up again, Arthur's shoes and jumper were off, and the car's windows were fogged over. The grey rainy sky outside was almost dark.

Molly's hair was nearly dry, pouffy and mad. Arthur smoothed it with both his hands, his face flushed and grinning.

"Looks like the coast is clear," he said. "We should get back."

She whimpered and took him back inside the blanket with her. "Let's take the car to the Burrow and live in it there from now on," she said, faking a pout.

He laughed against her forehead. "Aren't you hungry?"

"I've brought your orange. It's in my soggy jumper somewhere," she said.

Arthur laughed. "Stupid orange."

"Mary's idea?"

"Yeah," he said.

"I'll have to thank her," Molly said.

One of her shoulder straps had slipped and Arthur lifted it back into place. "No matter how many oranges we have, living in a car is probably not the best idea, what with winter coming on," he said.

She sighed. "And in the middle of our last quidditch season."

"In our NEWT year," he finished, finding his jumper and easing it down over her head.

She fluffed her hair out the collar. "How do I look?"

He stamped a kiss on her rosy mouth. "Adorable, and ready to murder Malfoy to get your wand back."