Novus Orbis | Fred Weasley x Insert | ON HIATUS

Chapter 34 - Molly Weasley

The night is dark, street lamps illuminating the streets that lie beneath the starless sky. Owls sit cooing in the trees speckled around the strip, feathers ruffling and wide eyes watching as the girl goes down out of the house unseen by Muggles. She's not prepared for the chill–dressed in a jumper, she wraps her arms around herself and looks up and down the street. Setting off towards the west end, she keeps her head down and observes with a weary countenance the closed doors and lit windows from the Muggle houses.

Far behind her, under the watch of the birds, a shout comes from the house–sharp words from a deeper voice, and that of an old woman. The door of 12, Grimmauld Place swings open a second time, and a man comes out, still shirking his jacket over his shoulders. His hair is mussed, his face is tired, but with expression alert he looks back and forth. Treading quickly down the stairs, he spots her–far down the street, her steps quick. Wasting no time, the figure hurriedly follows, making no call for fear of alerting the neighbors.

It's a game of beeline and chase, the girl giving no signs that she hears his footsteps slapping on the wet pavement as he runs for her. The breeze whips her hair about her face, and after several minutes of desperately trying to tuck her hair in such a way that it would stay put, she gives up, irritably allowing it to flick about her eyes and spitting it out when it gets in her mouth.

I hate Molly, she thinks irritably. Rashly. I hate Molly.

Why does Molly have to ruin everything with her worrying ways and her frustrating want for all her children to work office jobs, prim and proper? Why does Molly have to take all their order forms and destroy them? All their taffies and creams and candies that they've worked so hard to create? And Godric forbid she find the chest where the money from Harry's winnings is kept. The girl kicks the rocks at her feet, grunting and watching miserably as they scatter and crackle out across the pavement. Why does Molly get to close every door that opens for them?

Lupin observes as she bunches up the fabric of her jumper, pushing it to her face and letting out a muffled scream of frustration. Then she sits on the wet curb, pulling her knees to her chest and putting her face in her arms. Running a hand through his mussed hair, he begins moving again, reaching her in three long strides and opting to stand above her, rather than sit down and startle her.

"I thought we had the door bolted–somehow you managed to find a window where it was not. It's dangerous to be out here," he adds.

"I'm not a dog," she says. He doesn't answer that.

"You'll get rather uncomfortable, getting your pants all wet like that," he tells her. She only looks up at him, raw irritation on her face. It's an obvious thing, so she says nothing of the new predicament.

"How comforting," she chuffs. "Do you have any other advice, professor? Should I have worn wellies, too?"

"If you had planned on stomping out of the house in a storm, perhaps."

"I never used to call them that," she mutters. "They were rain boots. That's what they call them in America."

"I know," he says simply.

"I hate it here," she says.

"Do you?" The professor asks, eyeing her warily. He stands still above her, letting the girl wallow. She only glares at him, digging her shoes into the wet gravel gathered at the side of the road.

"I do," she says. "I wish I could go home. I wish I didn't have these stupid nightmares. I wish I didn't live knowing–knowing. Knowing horrible things. I hate it here." She stares down at the street. "I wish I had never dropped into this world."

"I don't think that you mean that." Lupin says. "I don't think that you can make yourself mean it." He pauses. "And I don't think you would be able to allow yourself to go back to your life before if you did."