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Remus and Tonks had announced that they had been secretly married, and Molly thought that she had never seen the man look so happy. The drinks were flowing, and Tonks was excitedly showing Ginny and Fleur pictures of the dress she had worn, and the wildflowers that Remus had gathered for her, while Remus beamed and thanked Arthur for talking some sense into him, even putting up with some (Molly thought over the line) jokes from Fred and George about him saving money by piggybacking onto Bill’s wedding.
Eventually, Molly spotted her chance. She seized a new bottle of elf-made wine and made her way over to him, where he was talking affectionately with Ron.
‘Ron, go and help your father find more wine, this is the last bottle.’
‘I’m talking to Prof-’ he protested irritably, but she simply glared at him and jerked her head until he left, scowling.
Remus was chuckling. ‘He’s very excited about Hermione arriving tomorrow,’ he said.
‘Oh, yes, well,’ said Molly knowingly as she watched Ron stomp away. ‘He always is.’
‘Hmm,’ said Remus, with a mild smile.
‘Anyway, congratulations, Remus,’ Molly said to him as she embraced him, though she had said it many times already that evening.
‘Thank you,’ he replied, glancing over at his laughing wife with a small, amazed smile. ‘Hasn’t quite sunk in yet.’
‘Well, it’s only been a couple of days, no wonder you’re still all in a tizzy. Why don’t the pair of you try and get away somewhere for a while? For a honeymoon. Out of the country, perhaps?’ He stiffened slightly, a flush appearing on his cheeks, but Molly pushed on - she understood this issue more than most. ‘Don’t bring up money, the entire Order would have a whip round for you as a wedding present, you know that, don’t be proud about it-’
‘It’s not just that,’ he said abruptly, though she was well aware by his increasingly pink cheeks that it was significantly to do with that. ‘We had two nights in a nice bed and breakfast, that’s enough for now…’ He cleared his throat slightly. ‘Besides which, we have an important meeting tomorrow evening, I really don’t think it would be appropriate for me to miss it.’
‘Figuring out how to get Harry out of Surrey?’ she replied, with a rather exhausted sigh. ‘I tell you, I’ve been wracking my brains trying to figure out how to get around Thicknesse’s ludicrous protections, I even thought perhaps someone could just risk it - if we hid Harry and them straight away - but giving them any excuse to arrest one of us is only going to cause more problems, isn’t it?’
‘Quite,’ he said heavily. ‘Maddening. Apparating would have been so much simpler… Anyway, I’m sure we will think of something, it will just involve more risk. I think it’s important Dora is there, Aurors have more experience in matters like this than you or I.’
‘Speaking of Harry,’ she said, topping up his wine for him, ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you - he will be seventeen this summer, obviously - I don’t suppose… naturally, I know he might not have even considered it, being how soon he…’ Molly could not quite find the words to say it, because she did not want to upset Remus, not when he looked so happy, but she couldn’t work out who else might know. He waited patiently, a slightly confused frown on his face. She placed the wine bottle back on the kitchen table and took a breath. ‘I don’t suppose you know if Sirius had a watch he was planning on giving Harry? For his seventeenth.’
‘Ah, of course,’ said Remus, who looked rather taken aback. He glanced down at his own gold-trimmed watch, with a soft looking leather strap. ‘I…’ He was silent for a while, wincing slightly. ‘I’m… I’m sorry, Molly, but no, I don’t think so. If he did, I certainly don’t have it, or know where it would be. I suspect he hadn’t even thought about it… it wasn’t really in his nature to think that far ahead.’
‘Did his father perhaps-’
He closed his eyes for a moment, and looked utterly miserable. ‘No, I -’ Remus gave a shuddering sort of sigh and took a sip of his wine. ‘James was buried with his - clearly it’s not in my nature to think that far ahead either, it never occurred to me.’
She smiled and gave an understanding nod. ‘Seventeen is a long way off when they’re babies.’
‘Indeed, and he was very small,’ said Remus. He looked incredibly uncomfortable. ‘I… I’m sorry, Molly, I really wish I… it’s not going to be possible for me, not right now, I should have-’
‘Oh, no, dear!’ she said hurriedly, immediately horrified as she saw him looking more ashamed than ever. ‘No, no, I wasn’t hinting or trying to imply-’
‘It’s why I’ve always tried to keep him at a distance, I just don’t have the means to support a-’ he muttered, looking awkwardly down at his wine.
‘Remus,’ she interrupted, in a gentle, but firm voice. ‘Arthur and I are arranging it, I wasn’t trying to suggest you should.’
‘It’s good of you,’ he said quietly. ‘I don’t know who else would think of that for him.’
‘Well,’ she said casually, though she felt herself standing a little taller, ‘it’s tradition, isn’t it? I’ll figure something out.’
‘You know,’ he said, after a slight pause. ‘What you said earlier - about a whip round. I’m sure the Order would be far happier about doing that to get Harry a watch than to give Dora and me an unnecessary holiday.’
‘That’s a good idea. I’ll think about it,’ she said vaguely. She paused too. ‘I just… You know, it was easy with Ron, he never gets new things, so Arthur and I saved for quite some time, and I asked Muriel to chip in too - I’m still paying her back,’ she added, with an exasperated raise of her eyebrows to Remus’s understanding, small smile. ‘But, you know, that was what made it special for Ron, something new and expensive. And all the other boys too, I’ve tried to make it personal for them, and when it comes to Ginny’s necklace next year - well, we’re already saving for that too. But I think for Harry…’
‘Something meaningful,’ said Remus.
‘Yes, exactly.’
He took a breath as he considered, and as he seemed to think he looked back over at his new wife, who was enthusiastically showing Ginny how she had managed her first dance without falling over - inadvertently bumping the edge of the welsh dresser with her hip as she did.
‘It’s awful, but it’s such a long time that I don’t even remember what James’s watch looked like. You don’t notice those things as a young man. I’ll have a look at some photos tonight, and we could see if we could find one that’s similar. Although,’ he said darkly, taking another drink from his wine. ‘The 70s - ugly era.’
She laughed, imagining some kitsch monstrosity, orange and brown, perhaps; even with a parental connection, no doubt there would be a firm line to what was tolerable. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I don’t think that would really be enough of a connection. I’ll have a think - I’ll find something nice. I’m sorry to bother you about it,’ she added, patting his arm.
He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry I could not have been of more help.’
Later that evening, when she was telling herself she should probably go to bed but was enjoying the late night wireless soap too much, and keen to finish the sleeve of the jumper she was knitting, she spoke to Ron about it.
‘Do you know if Harry has a particular style of watch he likes, dear?’
‘What?’ he asked in a slightly alarmed voice, looking up from his book, which he had (unusually for him) been attentively reading for several days.
‘Watches, dear, do you know the sort of thing Harry would like? For his birthday.’
‘How should I know?’ he asked, baffled.
‘Well, you are friends with him,’ she said impatiently. ‘I thought you might have some kind of insight. What about the one he wears now, does he like it? Who got him that?’
‘Dunno,’ he said. ‘I think it was probably an old one of his uncle’s or cousin’s. He fixes their broken stuff when they throw them away - that’s what he did with his alarm clock.’ He considered, and nodded vaguely. ‘Yeah, thinking about it, he definitely had to make an extra hole in the strap, because it was way too big for him. He used that knife Sirius got him, I remember.’
‘Hmm,’ she said, frowning into her knitting. ‘Oh, I just don’t know what to do about it. As if I haven’t got enough to be thinking about - I really hoped someone might have kept one aside for him. I’m not sure if it’s even right or me to be doing it, it’s meant to be your father that gets it for you.’
There was a long silence, and then Ron spoke, hesitant, and guilty sounding. ‘Mum, he… he won’t know that’s a wizarding tradition.’
She looked up, studying him closely. The tips of his ears had gone pink, and he was he was looking almost as uncomfortable as Remus had.
‘I’m just saying,’ he mumbled. ‘Don’t… don’t stress about it too much, don’t think he’ll be upset or anything. He’s got a lot on his mind and, you know, I didn’t tell him that my watch was traditional, he won’t be expecting-’
‘What did you tell him when you got it then?’ she asked sharply.
‘Nothing! I just didn’t mention it, let him think it was just a nice watch I happened to get for my birthday, you know. And obviously Dean didn’t get one because his mum’s muggle, so she doesn’t get it, and Seamus’s dad is a muggle too, so he said he’d probably get all the coming of age type stuff when he’s eighteen, and Neville is in the holidays so he won’t see that, and I thought I’d ask Neville to keep it quiet as Harry probably won’t get one now that Sirius’s dead so there was no point in telling him about something he won’t-’
‘Ronald, while I’m sure your intentions were good, I’m not just going to cross my fingers and hope he doesn’t notice,’ she said firmly.
‘What are you going to do?’ he challenged. ‘Waltz into Diagon Alley and browse through them? Order some through the catalogue and give out our address?’
‘I haven’t thought how I’ll get him one yet,’ she said patiently. ‘But I’ll find a way. Perhaps someone in the order will pick one up.’
But Ron had raised yet another obstacle she hadn’t thought of, and now she was more worried than ever. It had impressed her that Ron had considered it at all, even apparently as early as when he received his own watch, to the point where he was planning on speaking to other boys in their dormitory, though she did rather wish he’d had a little more tact and understanding about it in general.
Nevertheless, he was right. The security measures necessary when one’s family had any sort of connection to Harry Potter was so vast that she realised it might be quite impossible to get him one at all, even if she did manage to find a nice one that was both in budget and personal.
Things did not improve over the next few days as the plans to move Harry from Surrey were formulated, and security at the Burrow became even tighter. She watched out of the window as Fred and George headed to the orchard, where she knew they would cast yet more protective charms and barriers on that side of their property, while Arthur and Bill did the same on the other side.
She watched them closely, her twin boys. She had bought them matching watches, the only difference the engravings of their initials on the back. She had had the twins not long after her brothers died, and the thought of naming them Gideon and Fabian had occurred to her at once, but when she had finally held them in her arms she had known instinctively that these two babies were far too happy to be named after dead men. So she had taken the G and the F, and that had been enough of a tribute for her, and though she did not like to talk or even think about her brothers much at all, the initials on the jumpers and scratched naughtily into the kitchen table or scrawled over the walls over the years had been like friendly little waves.
They had had nice watches, she remembered. She’d given Gideon’s to Bill, because he had been his favourite uncle and he had been so upset when he died - he’d cried for days - and her and Arthur were short of money, as usual, so all they had to do was pay for a replacement of the glass over the face, because it had cracked in the duel. Fabian had knocked his about all over the place because he was barely more careful with his possessions than Gideon, and he had insisted on wearing it all the time, despite the act that he was always getting into scrapes. But they’d both had lovely gold ones, she remembered her father presenting them proudly. ‘A fine moment,’ he’d said, both times. ‘A fine moment when your son becomes a man.’
Harry would become a man too, she realised, which was strange because she’d spent so long worried about his coming of age present. Of course he was going to become a man. And then heavens knew what would happen to him.
She wanted to be able to wave her wand and give him back his parents, just for a day, just so they could give him this special rite of passage that everyone went through.
‘Done,’ came a voice, and she had been so lost in thoughts that even though she recognised it immediately as Arthur, she jumped, placing a hand to her chest.
‘Merlin’s beard, don’t creep up on me like that.’
‘Sorry,’ he said, smiling gently as he walked over and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Well, nothing’s getting in there. Bill said he’s going over with Moody and Lupin to add some additional ones to the Tonks’s house as well.’ He sighed, removed his glasses, and cleaned them on the edge of his jumper. ‘At this rate it will be a miracle if even Harry manages to get in, let alone all the guests for the wedding. I - oh! Molly!’
She had started to cry - she hated how easily she cried. She never used to, not when she was young and vivacious, like Ginny, but it seemed like having so many children somehow made it quite impossible to stop her emotions from spilling over sometimes.
He was hugging her tightly, stroking at her hair and murmuring comforting words quietly. He always knew what to do.
‘I’m - sorry-’ she gasped. ‘I just… Oh, Arthur! It’s all such a worry. And - and Ron says they’ll all leave after the wedding! He won’t tell me where! But those are my boys, Arthur-’
‘I know,’ he said gently.
‘And it’s just not fair - poor Harry! He never expects anything, you know, never asks for anything - he doesn’t deserve any of this.’
‘Not at all.’
‘And I’m so worried that all this security won’t work, that he’ll be in too much danger, that he won’t stay for the wedding - I’m terrified that the second he turns seventeen he’ll just - just apparate away because he doesn’t realise he belongs here with us.’
He kissed the top of her head, and rubbed her back reassuringly. ‘He knows he’s part of the family,’ he said.
‘Does he?’ she asked, ashamed of how shrill her voice had become. ‘Does he really, Arthur?’
‘Of course he does.’
Her mind was set now - she could not say when she had decided that this was what she would do, but perhaps she had known it all along, even before she watched Fred and George out of the window.
‘When you talk to the ghoul about the spattergroit plan, could you bring me down that old trunk? The one… the one I put all my brothers’ things in?’
Arthur hesitated, and pulled away slightly. He looked down into her face with great concern, his hands gripping her arms. She understood why. She never looked through those things, and she rarely said his name. It was all far too painful. Yet she had never found it in herself to have them thrown out either.
‘Molly,’ he said uneasily, ‘is now the time to reopen old-’
‘I think Fabian’s watch might be in there,’ she said. ‘I think I remember it from when I got Gideon’s.’ She could not be sure. She rather thought that Bill’s seventeenth might have been the last time she had opened that trunk at all. She closed her eyes at the thought of opening it again, going through their old things. She wondered if, after all these years, their jumpers might still have their smell, whether the old photos might have faded, whether the charms on their chess pieces might have faded off, so that they lay there at the bottom, still and quiet and covered in dust.
‘I will look for you,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to search through it.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, because she did not think she could bear it. Seeing the watch alone would be hard enough.
And it was. When Arthur brought it to her, she wept, for several hours. He had been such a foolish young man, so thoughtless, so reckless, so full of life and humour and a complete disregard for his surroundings. ‘It’s dented on the back,’ she sobbed. ‘Look at this! I won’t be able to get it re-engraved or anything, I can’t give him this-’
‘Mum,’ said Ron, who had hurried in at the sound of her crying some time before and was now gripping her shoulder. ‘Mum, don’t be silly. It doesn’t need to be engraved, he won’t-’
‘You don’t have to, Molly,’ said Arthur quickly. ‘Not if you don’t want to. I can - I can risk going into Diagon Alley, or perhaps Muggle London-’
‘N-no,’ she said loudly, wiping at her tears. ‘No, I want it to be handed down. It’s… it’s not just about going through the motions.’ She sniffed loudly, remembering vividly Fabian juggling apples in the kitchen, being silly as usual, his wrist glinting gold. The stars circled around the face, a little faded. ‘Will he mind, Ron?’ she asked him. ‘Will he mind it being so battered? He has so many old things from his aunt and uncle, do you think he might want something a bit more…’
‘Mum, if he wants something flashy he can go and buy it himself. This’ll… I reckon this will mean a lot to him.’
***
They had wanted to present it to him together, as parents should, when possible, without too much of an audience. But when Harry entered the kitchen, laughing with Ron, she had to give him Arthur’s apologies.
‘Arthur told me to wish you a happy seventeenth, Harry. He had to leave early for work, but he’ll be back for dinner,’ she told him. Nerves were building inside her. ‘That’s our present on the top,’ she said.
Harry flashed her a warm smile, and she tried not to show how worried she was - about what she couldn’t say. He took the small, square parcel as he sat, and she watched closely as he unwrapped it and opened the box. She saw him blink, and his lips part slightly.
‘It’s traditional to give a wizard a watch when he comes of age… I’m afraid that one isn’t new like Ron’s,’ she said, aware that she was starting to babble anxiously. ‘It was my brother Fabian’s and he wasn’t terribly careful with his possessions, it’s a bit dented on the back, but-’
But at the mention of her brother, Harry’s face had snapped towards her, looking rather stunned, and as she continued speaking he had got up, walked in long strides across the kitchen, and hugged her.
She was not sure he had ever initiated a hug, with her or anyone else for that matter. He always seemed faintly surprised when she did so, and the moment she had realised that she had made it her mission to hug him as much as she thought was socially acceptable. But she could feel his arms squeezing around her slightly, his head ducked down so it was over her shoulder, and she could swear that she heard him swallow and take a slightly shuddering breath. In that moment she wondered if he, too, was thinking about their initial meeting in Kings Cross all those years ago, how alone he had looked, and how she hoped very much that he did not feel alone now.
When he pulled away, she was worried she might cry if she looked into his face for too long, and he always looked so deeply uncomfortable when she cried before. So instead, she gave him a watery smile and clumsily tried to pat his cheek, and tried not to think about how his eyes were shining slightly too.