"Yes!" Ron exclaimed. "They ran away from evil and lived happily ever after!"
Molly sighed. She had omitted the part about the curse in her retelling of the story to her children, just as her father had omitted telling her about this curse until he was on his deathbed and then it was only in his dying breath. From her father to her the burden became hers to carry, and came to bear down on her most bitterly on the death of her two brothers.
Ron looked at her, concerned. "They did live happily ever after, did they?" he asked, seeking an answer he had a feeling he might not find.
"For a while, yes," Molly replied. "For as long as your grandmother was alive we were as happy as we could be. It wasn't easy for them, because they had eloped and your grandmother was cut off from the family inheritance and your grandfather was poor to begin with."
"If all of you were a happy family," Ron said, "why then did you and dad have to elope, too?"
Molly gave Ron a bemused look, revealing that it was one of her fonder memories, though not without some bittersweetness.
...
It is incredibly difficult, not having any resources, to raise a family well. Rhiannon was blacklisted by her family, lost all her former connections and was even expelled from Healing school. From then, they moved from town to town, taking whatever job they could find there. In this way they lived frugally, until one day the news came to them that an elderly writing mentor of Geraint's had recently passed, and his old cottage was to be rented out at a cheap rate in order to pay off the mountain of debt he left behind.
It was also at this time that Rhiannon began to find regular employment from the Muggle world as a violin teacher. Geraint, who, besides a love of literature, was also good with his hands, took up woodworking, building bookshelves for the nearby town. With their living arrangement secured and income trickling in slowly but surely, they decided to have a child.
Now, neither had forgotten the curse Rhiannon's grandmother put on them, so their decision to have a child did not come lightly. They both agreed that they would do all in their power to break this curse, so that this child should find the same happiness in love they enjoyed.
The child was born, a sweet-faced baby girl, who had a bubbling laugh and a kind heart and brought her patents much joy. They lived as a happy trio until, as accidents of this sort occasionally happen, Rhiannon was pregnant with another.
Another soon turned out to be two, for Rhiannon was found to be carrying twins. There was a private fear that this was much more than they could handle, but dear Molly was so pleased with the prospect of younger siblings they decided that they would find a way to cope.
And so it was until the day Rhiannon was diagnosed with dragon pox. The loss of one source of income made the burden of household expenses ever larger, although thanks to the Magical Heath Service, Rhiannon was not denied the healthcare she needed and medical bills were not a problem.
Rhiannon never recovered from the dragon pox and it ultimately led to her death. Geraint took the news especially hard. It was as if a part of him had died as well, and he was never to recover from the depression that stuck with him after.
He was, not to say, a terrible father, but any person in the throes of mental illness could scarce be able to cope on a daily basis. By that time, Molly had begun her education at Hogwarts and wrote often to her little brothers, asking them to be patient and understanding with their father, who could spend days on end huddled up under his duvet, locked in his room.
The quality of his work declined too, when the pressure of having rent and bills to pay became so great he had no choice but to drag himself to the workshop to haphazardly cobble some planks together.
It went on and on, falling into a soulless, dreary routine, until things came to a head one day when a stranger knocked on the door.
It was not just a stranger, but the wealthy wizard Rhiannon's parents had wanted her to marry!
The wizard stepped into the house, surveying the shabby surroundings. He could barely conceal his smugness at the plight of this family. He revealed himself to be the ultimate owner of the cottage as well as the surrounding land, and, in a show of false magnanimity meant to emphasise his control over them, he declared that he would spare this family their debt and award them the title to this cottage if they should give him what he had been denied all those years ago—a wife.
Yes, he had heard that Rhiannon had long left this world but it was not Rhiannon he wanted, for even if she had lived she would now be a ghastly old hag. He wanted for himself a young and pretty wife, and he had heard that they had a daughter, who was by and large rumoured to be the school belle.
The words incited Geraint into life, as he became animated by a violent anger. He would never promise his daughter away as if she were chattel and he would never let his daughter, his precious firstborn, become the unhappy wife of a greedy old man who was sure to not accord her due respect.
However, this wizard then brandished a piece of parchment in his face, a contract signed by the late literary mentor, so poorly drawn and exploitative as to implicate any residents of the land no matter if they had not signed it themselves.
Geraint had no prior knowledge of this contract, but knew he had to act decisively. To stall for time, he informed the wizard that his daughter had not yet come of age, for her seventeenth birthday had not yet come. The wizard eyed him beadily and stated that he had the patience, and would return in just over a month, on Molly's seventeenth birthday, to claim her for himself.
It was then Geraint felt like an absolute failure, for that which he had agreed with Rhiannon to prevent was coming true. He had spent all this time moping and hating himself and he had neglected to care for his children when they needed him, and he was about to turn into something utterly reprehensible, should this unholy union proceed under his watch.
He wrote to Molly in school, informing her in no uncertain words about the danger she was in. He had spent several hours thinking of possible solutions, and the only one he had been able to come up with was of uprooting the entire family to a faraway place such as Australia.
Molly replied that she would give it some thought on her side. The thought of dropping out of school to be married to some stranger whom she hated the sound of was causing a great anxiety, and her sometime boyfriend, Arthur Weasley, noticed her worry.
Trusting Arthur enough to confide in him, she told Arthur of the conundrum she faced. Arthur, without a thought, suggested that the two of them could get married first, in which case the villainous old wizard would be thwarted.
Molly chided Arthur for being ridiculous, for they were both still in school. But as soon as she dismissed it she began to realise it might be worth consideration after all. They had been going out for the better part of two years, and she realised that her ideal future was one in which Arthur featured strongly.
They discussed it over several nights, and then they decided that this was the option they both could live with. They made plans for Geraint to go up to Hogsmeade, so that they could inform him of this plan and ask for his blessing, and also to do so in a manner that would not be intercepted by that fiend.
Fortunately, Geraint and Arthur took well to each other and he found Arthur a respectful person who would not shirk his responsibilities to Molly and any children they saw fit to have.
He agreed for them elope from Hogwarts on this school night to rendezvous at a small chapel in Arthur's hometown, where they would be married at the stroke of midnight.
The twenty ninth of November rolled around and after most others had gone to sleep, Arthur and Molly quietly roused to make their escape. Arthur was nearly thwarted by patrolling prefects as he tiptoed down the hall. Bellatrix Black and Rodolphus Lestrange were on the night patrol, and they were discussing various ways to inflict punishmenton students for breaking school rules. Arthur jumped behind a suit of armour to hide, painfully aware that precious time was being lost here.
Somehow, Black and Lestrange would not leave the hall! Their imagined punishments for students were also getting increasingly sadistic. Arthur was beginning to get cramps in his arms from holding an awkward position wedged between the suit of armour and the wall. Next to him, through the open window, in blew a gust of chilly autumn wind down the hall.
That's it! He waited until Black and Lestrange had their backs turned, and then quickly shot a small spark out the window, an emergency call to let Molly know he would be late.
A short while after, he saw Molly speeding towards the window from the outside on a broom. If she came any closer the prefects would spot her! He felt around his pockets for his wand, and discovered an uneaten exploding gobstopper. A diversion! He tried to unwrap the gobstopper as silently as possible, which in the quiet night seemed to insist on crinkling noisily. He gave it a hearty lick, to activate the exploding properties, and then flung it in the general direction of the prefects.
Several seconds later, it exploded in a giant puff of strawberry-flavoured powder, allowing him the one chance to leap out of the window unnoticed. He fell into the cold autumn night, air whooshing past at an alarming speed, but he was not worried. He knew with certainty that Molly would catch him on time, which she did as if this was the most mundane thing in the world.
They arrived at the village chapel where Geraint and a small gathering of Arthur's family had showed up. Arthur's mother had dug up her old wedding dress for Molly to wear, and Arthur's brothers all chipped in with a different component of a dress robe.
Geraint slipped off his wedding ring, which he had never once taken off before, and together with Rhiannon's old ring, which he had also kept with him since she died, passed them over to the priest for Molly and Arthur to be married with.
The wedding ceremony was about to begin when there came the ominous sound of a carriage coming to a stop outside the chapel.
That dastardly villain had turned up! Dressed in all finery, he proudly took out the contract and announced that he was here to see it fulfilled.
There was a hush, and then Geraint spoke up. He challenged the cursed wizard to a duel, that he could only do it over his dead body.
The wizard was all too happy to agree. He proved to be a formidable opponent, well skilled in the art of the duel. Meanwhile, Geraint strove to take the duel outside, and motioned to the Weasley family that they should see that Arthur and Molly were wed before the duel was finished.
The wizard began to taunt him. He told Geraint that he heard that he was useless in the war, stupidly injuring himself even before he took on a real foe. Geraint had no experience of battle to boast of, and it was foolish of him to think he could stand up to someone of his rank. How could he even put up a fight?
Geraint countered with all his heart that he would show that dastardly villain what a fight truly meant. To fight, he said, is not to wreak violence and destruction upon hapless victims for the sake of showing power. To fight is to believe in something so strongly as to do anything possible to vindicate that belief. And what Geraint fought for here, what he truly believed in, was for the right of his children to marry one of their own choosing.
From the chapel there was the sound of a tune being played on the organ. He was not dueling to prove a point, Geraint proceeded to tell him. He was merely holding the wizard off for as long as necessary to get Molly and Arthur wed.
Thwarted, the villainous wizard began to scream, and then jumped into his carriage and blazed off swearing revenge upon revenge. Geraint, wounded, fell on the floor dramatically just as a happy crowd burst from the chapel.
He was rushed to the hospital, and while they were there, it transpired that the dastardly wizard was involved in a deadly collision with muggle aircraft as he had whipped his horses into a frenzy spurred on by his rage. Thankfully, his flying horses survived and were adopted into hospital service, where they found a much kinder home.
Unfortunately, Molly and Arthur had to return to Hogwarts before dawn, but, due to Geraint's hospitalisation, Molly would be able to seek leave from school to visit him the next day.
They arrived back at Hogwarts at around four in the morning, and went separate ways to sneak back into dorm, which Molly did with success, but Arthur was caught by Apollyon Pringle and sent to detention the next day.
Professor Dumbledore was very sympathetic and granted Molly, along with her two brothers, who were just in their first year, leave from school to see their ailing father.
In the hospital, Healers informed her that Geraint's condition had deteriorated and they should prepare for the worst. Gideon and Fabian had no knowledge of the previous night's events and burst upon tears at the frightful sight, so a mediwitch herded them out of the room to calm down. It was then Geraint told Molly of her great-grandmother's curse and asked her to look after her brothers. He apologised for being a terrible father and for an incorrigible weakness, for if Rhiannon had lived and he died first she would not have crumbled like this, and confessed that he had been entertaining thoughts of suicide until a month ago. Bitterly, he wept to Molly and begged that she would think better of him than just a mentally-ill father.
It was then Molly began to cry, and, holding her father's hands, rough and ragged from years of woodworking, said she felt sorry that he thought of himself that way. He was not for once just her mentally-ill father but many things to her, some of it good and some of it imperfect but he was wholly a human being she loved and respected, especially after what he did for her last night.
Geraint told her that he wished he could think of himself that way too, and he also saw that Molly had blossomed into maturity. Most other people reach a late stage of adulthood before they finally accept that their parents are neither supreme heroes nor reprehensible villains, but just as raw and in need of forgiveness as any other. Molly he could entrust with the care of their family.
At this point, the mediwitch ushered the little Prewett twins, who had ceased sobbing, back into the room, where they said their last goodbyes.