You don't know what it feels like!

Albus told Arthur how to find the guest room and Ginny went up there with her mother. Drawing her a bath and washing her hair, Ginny still watched her mother carefully. Molly seemed so far away and all Ginny wanted was to be held and told that everything was all right like when she had been a little child. After cleaning her mother thoroughly, Ginny wrapped a towel around Molly's body and helped her out of the bathroom. Her father indicated the door, making it obvious that it was time for her to leave.

Arthur shut the door of the guest room behind his daughter and stood with his back against it, hands behind him.

"You mustn't worry about me", Molly said, as reassuringly as she could. "I'm not traumatized, or anything of that sort. Unlike Minerva."

"I mustn't?" he asked guardedly. "And you're not ... shocked?"

His eyes narrowed, as he examined her with critical attention.

"I'm fine", Molly said, backing away a little. "Just ... I'm all right. Only a bit ... shaken."

Arthur took a step toward her and Molly backed up abruptly, aware belatedly that she was clutching the towel to her bosom as though it were a shield. She forced herself to lower it and felt blood prickle unpleasantly in her face and neck.

Arthur stood very still, regarding his wife with narrowed eyes. Then his gaze dropped to the floor between them. He stood as though deep in thought and then his big hands flexed. Once, twice. Very slowly. And Molly heard the bones cracking. They were so big. Suddenly she saw other hands ...

Arthur's head jerked up, startled, and Molly realized that she was standing on the other side of the room from him behind a chair, the towel wadded and pressed against her mouth. Her elbows moved like rusty hinges, stiff and slow, but she got the towel down. Her lips were nearly as stiff, but she spoke.

"I am a little shaken, yes", she said very clearly. "I'll be all right. Don't worry. I don't want you to worry."

The troubled scrutiny in his eyes wavered suddenly, like the glass of a window struck by a stone, in the split second before it chatters and he shut his eyes. He swallowed once and opened them again.

"Molly", he said very softly and the smashed and splintered fragments showed clear, sharp and jabbed in his eyes. "I can imagine what it is like and you say I must not worry for you?"

"Oh, God damn it!" Molly flung the towel on the floor and immediately wished she had it back again. She felt naked, standing in her nightgown and hated the crawling of her skin with a sudden passion that made her slap her thigh to kill it.

"Damn, damn, damn it! I don't want you to think of that. I don't! You can't imagine! You don't know what it is like!" And yet she had known from the first that this would happen.

Molly took hold of the chairback with both hands and held tight, and tried to force her own gaze into his, wanting so badly to throw herself upon those glittering shards, to shield him from them.

"Look", she said, steadying her voice. " I don't want ... I don't want to talk about it right now. I don't want to recall things better left forgotten."

The corner of his mouth actually twitched that.

"God", Arthur said, in something like wonder. "You think you can forget any of that?"

"Maybe not", Molly said, surrendering. She looked at him through swimming eyes. "But ... oh, Arthur, I so want to forget!"

Arthur put out a hand, very delicately, and touch the tip of his index finger to the tip of hers, where she clutched the chair.

"Don't mind it", he said softly and withdrew his finger. "It Doesn't matter now. Will you rest a bit, Mollywobbles? Or eat, maybe?"

"No. I don't want ... no."

In fact, Molly couldn't decide what she wanted to do. She didn't want to do anything at all. Other than unzip her skin, climb out, and run ... and that didn't seem feasible. She took a few deep breaths, hoping to settle herself and go back to that nice sense of utter exhaustion.

Arthur hesitated, then took a careful step toward her, watching her face. Molly didn't scream or bolt, and he took another, coming close enough that she could feel the warmth of his body. Not startle this time and damp in her damp nightgown, she relaxed a little, swaying toward him and saw the tension in his own shoulders let go slightly, seeing it.

He touched her face, very gently. The blood throbbed just below the surface, tender, and Molly had to brace herself not to flinch away from his touch. He saw it and drew back his hand a little, so that it hovered just above her skin ... Molly could feel the heat of this palm.

"Will it heal?" he asked, fingertips moving over the split in her left brow then down the minefield of her cheek to the scrape on her jaw where Lucius' boot had just missed making a solid connection that could have broken her neck.

"Of Course it will. You know that and see it has already begun to heal because of the bruising balm."

Molly would have smiled in the reassurance, but didn't want to open the deep split in her lip again and so made a sort of pouting goldfish mouth, which took him by surprise and made him smile.

"Yes, I know." He ducked his head a little, shy. "It's only ..." His hand still hovered near her face, an expression of troubled anxiety on his own. "Oh, God", he said softly. "Oh, Christ, your lovely face."

"Can you not bear to look at it?" Molly asked, turning her own eyes away and feeling a sharp little pain at the thought, but trying to convince herself that it didn't matter. It would heal, after all.

Arthur's fingers touched her chin, gently but firmly, and drew it up, so that Molly faced him again. This mouth tightened a little as his gaze moved slowly over her battered face, taking inventory. His eyes were soft and dark in the candlelight, the corners tight with pain.

"No", he said quietly. "I can't bear it. The side of you tears my heart. And it fills me with such rage I think I must kill someone or burst. But by the God who made you, Mollywobbles, I will not lie with you and be unable to look you in the face."

"Lie with me?" Molly asked blankly. "What ... you mean now?"

His hand dropped from her chin, but he looked steadily at Molly, not blinking.

"Well ... yes, I do."

Had Molly's jaw had been so swollen, her mouth would have dropped open in pure astonishment.

"Ah ... why?"

"Why?" he repeated. Arthur dropped his gaze then and made the odd shrugging motion that he made when embarrassed or discomfort. "I ... well ... it seems ... necessary."

Molly had a thoroughly unsuitable urge to laugh.

"Necessary? Do you think it's like being thrown by a horse? I ought to get straight back on?"

His head jerked up and you shot her an angry glare.

"No", he said, between clenched teeth. Arthur swallowed hard and visibly, obviously reining in strong feelings. "Are you ... are you badly damaged, then?"

Molly stared at him as best she could, through her swollen lids.

"Is that a joke of some ... oh", she said, it finally dawned on her what he meant. She felt he'd rise in her face and her bruises throbbed.

"I have been beaten to a bloody pulp, Arthur, and abused in several nasty ways. But only one ... there was only the one who actually ... he ... he was ... you know .... Lucius ... rough."

Molly swallowed, but a horrid night in her throat didn't budge perceptively. Cheers made the candlelight blur so that she couldn't see his face and she looked away, blinking.

"Yes!", she said, her voice sounding rather louder than intended. "I'm ... damaged. But the potion helps."

Arthur said something very nasty under his breath, short and explosive, and shoved himself away from the door. He threw the second stool across the room with a loud crash and he kicked it. Then he kicked it again, and again, and stamped on it with such violence and bits of wood flew across the room and struck the walls with little pinging sounds.

Molly sat completely still, too shocked and numb to feel distress. Should she not have told them? She wondered vaguely. But he knew, surely. He had asked.

But then ... to know something was one thing, and to be told the details another. Molly did know that and watched with a dim sense of guilty sorrow as he kicked away the splinters of the stool and flung himself at the window. It was shuttered, but he stood, hands braced on the sill and his back turned to Molly, shoulders heaving. She couldn't tell if he was crying.

The wind was rising. The shutters rattled in the night-smoored fire spouted puffs of soot as the wind came down the chimney.

"I'm sorry", she said at last, in a small voice.

Arthur swiveled on his heel at once and glared at her. He wasn't crying, but he had been. His cheeks were wet.

"Don't you dare be sorry!" he roared. "I won't have it, do you hear?"

It took a giant step toward the bed and kicked it, hard enough to make it shake. "Don't be sorry!"

Molly had closed her eyes in reflex but forced herself to open them again.

"All right", she said. She felt terribly, terribly tired again and very much like crying herself. "I won't."

There was a charged silence. Then Arthur drew a deep, shuddering breath and wiped the sleeve across his face. Molly hugged herself tightly.

"Necessary", she said, more or less calmly. "What did you mean, necessary?"

"Does it not occur to you that you might be with child?"

He'd got himself back under control and said this as calmly as you might have asked her about the weather. Startled, Molly looked up at him.

"I'm not."

But her hands had gone by reflex to her belly.

"I'm not", she repeated more strongly. "I can't be."

She could, though ... just possibly. The chance was not a big one, but it existed. She normally used some form of contraception, just to be certain ... seven children were enough ... but then she remembered Lucius ...

"I am not", she said. "I'd know."

Arthur merely stared at her, eyebrows raised. She wouldn't, not so soon. So soon ... soon enough that if it were so and if there were more than one man ... there would be doubt. The benefit of the doubt. That's what he offered her ... and himself.

A deep shudder started in the depths of Molly's womb and spread instantly through her body, making goosebumps break out on her skin, despite the warmth of the room.

"Bloody, bloody hell", she said very quietly, using the favourite curse of her youngest son. She spread her hands out flat on her belly, trying to think.

"NO!"

Her legs and buttocks pressed together tightly in revulsion.

"You might ..." Arthur began stubbornly.

"I'm not", Molly repeated, just as stubbornly. "But even if ... you can't, Arthur!"

He looked at her and she caught the flicker of fear in his eyes. That, she realised with a jolt, was exactly what he was afraid of. Or one of the things.

"You ... you're sure?" Molly asked.

"No", he said. "I'm not."

He took a deep breath then and looked at her, his face uncertain in wavering candlelight. "But I mean to try. I must for your sake."

"Well ... you come whenever I've needed you. I rather think you'll do it this time, too."

Arthur looked completely blank for an instant, not grasping the feeble joke. Then it struck him, and blood rushed to his face. His lips twitched, and twitched again, unable to decide between shock and laughter.

"Are you sure?" he asked in a concerned voice.

Molly flipped to hand, unable to think of a proper explanation.

"They ... they were just .... men."

She spoke the last word with a sense of loathing evident even to her.

"Men", Arthur said, is voice sounding odd.

"Men", Molly said. She opened her eyes and looked at him. Her eyes felt hot and she thought they must glow red, like Voldemort's.

"I have lived through a fucking war against death-eaters", she said, her voice low and venomous. " I have given birth to 7 children. I have lost my parents. I have starved myself for my children when they needed clothes or books, I have been beaten and wounded, been patronised, betrayed and attacked. And I have fucking survived!" Her voice was rising, but she was helpless to stop it. "And now should I be shattered because some wretched, pathetic excuses for men stuck their nasty little appendages between my legs and wiggled them?!" Molly seized the edge of the vanity table and heaved it over, sending everything flying with the crash ... basin, ewer and lighted candlestick, which promptly went out.

"Well, I won't", she said quite calmly.

"Nasty little appendages?" Arthur said, looking rather stunned.

"Not yours", she said. "I didn't mean yours. I'm rather fond of yours."

Then Molly said down and burst into tears.

Arthur's arms came around her, slowly and gently. She didn't startle or jerk away and he pressed her head against him, moving her damp, tangled hair, his fingers catching in the mass of it.

"Christ, who are brave little thing", he murmured.

He'd meant to be gentle. Very gentle. Had planned it with care, worrying each step of the long way to the hospital wing. She was broken. You must go canny, take his time. Be careful in glueing back her shattered bits.

And then he came to her and discovered that she wished no part of gentleness, of courting. She wished directness. Brevity and violence. If she was broken she would slash him with her jagged edges, reckless as a drunkard with a shattered bottle.

For a moment, two moments, he struggled, trying to hold her close and kiss her tenderly. She squirmed like an eel in his arms, then rolled over him, wriggling and biting.

He'd thought to ease her ... both of them ... with the wine. He'd known she lost all sense of restraint when drink. He simply hadn't realised what she was restraining, he thought grimly, trying to seize her without hurting.

He, of all people, should have known. Not fear or grieve for pain ... but rage.

She raked his back. You felt this scrape of broken nails, and thought dimly that was good ... she'd fought. That was the last of his thought. His own fury took him then, rage and a lust that came on him like black thunder on a mountain, a cloud they did all from him and him from all, so that kind familiarity was last and he was alone, strange in darkness.

Wrath boiled and curdled in his balls, and he wrote to her spurs. Let his lightning blaze and sear all trace of the intruder from her womb, and if it burned them both to bone and ash ... then let it be.

----

When sense came back to him, he will a with his weight full on her, crushing her into the bed. Breath sobbed in his lungs. His hands clenched her arms so hard he felt bones like sticks about snap within his grasp.

He had lost himself. Was not sure where his body ended. He was still joined to her. He wanted to bolt like a startled quail, that managed to move slowly, loosening his fingers one by one from their death grip on her arms, lifting his body gently away, though the effort of it seemed immense, as though his weight were that of moons and planets. He half expected to see her crushed and flattened, lifeless on the sheet. But the springy arch of her ribs rose and fell and rose again, roundly reassuring.

Arthur shuddered and for lack of any other notion, kissed her forehead. Her arms came up sudden and held him fiercely, pulling him down onto her again and he seized her, too, crushing her to him hard enough to feel the breath go out of her, unable to let go. Then he cried, soundless, muscles strained to aching that you might not shake with it, that she might not wake to know it. He wept to emptiness and ragged breath, the pillow wet beneath his face. Then he lay exhausted, is only comfort was the small, so fragile weight that lay warm upon his heart, breathing.