On November 1st, 1981, while the majority of the wizarding world was celebrating the downfall of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, there were also several families in mourning.
Frank and Alice Longbottom had been killed their child, now orphaned and something that little boy had done had been the evil Lord's downfall; Neville Longbottom was being praised as the Boy-Who-Lived and had been hidden away from the magical world by his Grandmother. She'd immediately put her home under the Fidelus to keep the reporters from coming in search of her only grandson and making the world think of him as some kind of messiah.
Lesser known from that pivitol night was that a four-month-old had been snatched away in all the chaos from one of the most prolific pureblood families out there. Arthur and Molly Weasley's only daughter had been taken away from them. There were no leads and the family was completely devastated.
For months they searched for sign of her and some sign of who it was that had broken into their home in the dead of night and taken her from her crib while her parents slept only feet away. But all the Death Eaters that had been captured and questioned had admitted to no knowledge of it. The case was left open with no leads. The entirety of what was left of the Order of Phoenix had done what they could to console the Weasley's and assist with their six boys while Molly, who had always wanted a daughter, was inconsolable and shut herself up in her room.
After a while, once her breast milk had run dry and her husband removed the empty crib from their room, she allowed her sons to come to her one by one and climb into her bed and cuddle with her. Day by day she stepped out of her bedroom for a little bit longer. Arthur was her rock, and her oldest boys had been so helpful with their younger siblings.
After two months Molly was making meals again. After five months she managed a smile. After a year she found her desire to make love to her husband again, insuring she had a contraceptive charm in place as there would be no more children for her.
()()()()()()()
September 1990
Harry was running away from Dudley and his gang again. Always. It was his recess ritual. The teachers must have thought they were playing tag or something since they never stepped in to stop the harassment Harry got from Dudley, Piers and the others.
He rounded the corner by the trash bins and caught someone out of the corner of his eye leaning against the wall, but he kept on running. The gang wasn't very far behind him when he got to the dead end, kicking himself again for winding up in the corner of the yard with nowhere left to go. He braced himself and stopped from colliding too hard with the wall.
"Nowhere to go, Potter," Piers said as he and the three other boys blocked him in. "You going to cry to a teacher this time?"
"Well, he can't cry to his mummy now can he?" Dudley mocked.
This was all a game to them; Pick on Potter. He looked for a gap that he could run through in their formation but couldn't see one. He gave in to the notion that they had him. They didn't bust him up too bad usually. Maybe he would get sent to the nurse again and be able to skiv off his afternoon lessons.
"Hey," came a call behind Piers.
Harry saw a flash from light reflecting off the trash bin lid just before it hit Piers across the face. Harry stood in shock staring at a petite red headed girl with a tough face and blazing brown eyes sneering down at Piers and checking that the other three boys weren't making a move toward her. "Don't you lot know that four on one isn't a fair fight?" she asked.
"You're going to get in trouble for that," Dudley said stupidly.
She pulled an innocent face. "What do you mean? The four of you just came out of no where and I was just so scared. I was defending myself," her chin quivered and she sounded about ready to cry.
