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Because Molly Weasley was tired of her good-for-nothing-husband and her ungrateful children, she wrapped herself in her favorite robe, lathered herself in lavender lotion, put on her sleeping cap and uncorked the bottle by her bedside. The bottle was emblazoned with
DRAUGHT OF THE LIVING DEATH
in a florid script that probably added to the exorbitant cost but Molly Weasley knew, when she paid for it, that the brew was worth it. For the first time in almost 30 years, Molly Weasley planned to sleep without a care in the world, which is to say, solidly, which is also to say, without being interrupted by her family who seemed to think she could exist without sleep entirely.
Molly Weasley knew her family would, eventually, find their way around her nap-time potion but until they pooled together their limited mental resources, she was out of reach. And deeply, deeply happy. She dreamed of Yuletide balls and falling snow around a fire, and the deep, lush embrace of Gilderoy Lockhart.
*
Arthur Weasley, it turns out, was not Gilderoy Lockhart: he did not wander the world attacking defenseless creatures in search of a book deal, nor did he have curly blond hair that most likely had potion assistance, nor did he have money. But he was a wizard who loved Molly Weasley more than he loved anything else, so that was something.
When Arthur Weasley came home, he shouted to Molly about his day (as he always did), telling her about the absolute humdinger he discovered while in the field—no really it was called a humdinger—and his superior had congratulated him on his contribution to furthering Muggle-Wizard understanding. (His superior said this no matter what Arthur found.) To Arthur Weasley, the lack of response was not a sign of anything wrong, but the lack of food on the table was. Arthur Weasley pursed his lips at the suspicious lack of food and the alarming silence accompanying the absence of said food.
“Molly, dear?”
Arthur plodded up to the room he and Molly had shared for three decades now, to see his wife asleep, hands folded on her chest, in a pose that reminded him of an illustration in a Muggle story full of little men and bad apples. Molly Weasley did not look her usual sleeping self and had a deathly pallor that stopped Arthur’s heart, a heart that would only resume beating when he touched her shoulder and felt her breathing. His chin dropped to his chest in relief.
“Molly?”
Beside her, a green bottle with fancy script: DRAUGHT OF LIVING DEATH.
Well, that explained it. (It didn’t really, but Arthur Weasley was a literal man and so interpreting the bottle’s significance would take a little more time and considerable mental labor.) He looked between the bottle and his wife, clearing his throat nervously and loudly in the hopes that perhaps his annoying habit would bring his wife back to consciousness as she hated it when he cleared his throat incessantly. No amount of throat clearing, it turned out, would serve as the antidote.
Arthur Weasley left his wife (with a backward glance in case she decided to wake up) to find his dusty copy of Antidotes and Counterbrews for the Busy Man, gifted to him by Molly just last year and, knowing the witch as he did, it wasn’t improbable that she foresaw her own actions and wanted to make sure her husband was well equipped to deal with it. He consulted the index, dragging his finger to the offending potion DRAUGHT OF LIVING DEATH and, yes, that’s it, dragged his finger over to the table of contents for the antidotes and, ah, yes, there, WIGGENWELD in big bold letters at the bottom of the list. Simple enough. Molly Weasley had an extensive potions cupboard that would do just the trick.
Arthur opened the cupboard and shifted around the bottles. He could hear Molly’s voice in his head telling him to put everything back where he found it. Despite his increasingly frantic shuffling, he could not find a single bottle with the word WIGGENWELD on it. Bile rose in his throat as he realized that he had to brew a potion. Him, Arthur Weasley, the worst Potions student in Hogwarts history. Taking shallowing, sipping breaths, Arthur went back to the book and looked down at the page, paralyzed by the all-too-familiar sensation of his own inadequacy, his skin blanching as he was faced with potions brewing and the memories of bad brews at Hogwarts. He cursed himself now for letting Molly complete all his potions work because of his fear of the cauldron and his inability to get a recipe right. It was just that Arthur Weasley was a practical man and could see no use for the majority of potions he was asked to make (that his own wife had to use them frequently never occurred to him nor did it occur to him that he could, in any way, contribute to the household potion making).
Even worse, Arthur Weasley was now responsible for brewing Wiggenweld (he dry heaved a bit) and making supper, a situation that was a bit like a one-two Bludger offensive to the face.
“Dad, have you got a Knut—”
“No, run along—”
“Dad, Fred turned my ears green—”
“That’s a nice color,” Arthur Weasley said vaguely as his world unraveled around him.
Arthur panicked while Ginny screamed after consuming a Banshee BonBon from Fred and George while Ron shouted at his older brothers for trimming his broom’s twigs and Arthur was still panicking when silence fell as all his children looked at him like he had escaped the mental ward at St. Mungo’s.
“Dad, are you okay?”
“Just a spot of bother,” Arthur said, flashing an unconvincing smile. “Run along—”
“Dad, you look sick—”
“Did someone die—”
Arthur fled the room and gathered the ingredients according to the recipe. He cast Muffliato on sitting room and proceeded to butcher several attempts at the Wiggenweld potion, emerging from the depths with his hair steaming and his face imprinted with soot from the smoke. His children had not moved because while Arthur Weasley had cast Muffliato, he had not shut the door, and what they had seen terrified them.
“Dad, how come you can’t brew Wiggenweld—”
“It’s a baby potion—”
“Dad, do you need help—”
Arthur Weasley did not want to shout at his children, but they were giving him no choice, his temper just would not have it. Arthur Weasley was not a stupid man—absent-minded, yes, driven by a few very niche interests, absolutely, and dependent on his wife, hopelessly—and while he had failed to brew his potion, he knew he had been failing his Molly, failing her because he couldn’t do anything right and failing her because he couldn’t solve a problem in her absence. It was up to him to return her to life and safety.
So, after much shouting and glaring, the awake Weasleys all looked at one another and Arthur laid out his plan. He paced in front of them, hoping he gave off the confidence of an Auror ready to lead his underlings into battle all the while resembling a rather nervous postmaster.
“Your mother is getting some much-needed rest,” Arthur Weasley, paterfamilias, concluded, “and so it is up to us to complete this mission.”
“Is that why there’s no supper?” Fred asked. “Because you don’t know how to cook?”
Arthur did not dignify this with an answer. “It’s up to us to make sure she wakes up to our appreciation, because she works too much as it is. We have to make more of an effort.”
“Who’s we?”
“This whole family!” Arthur Weasley said loudly. The children all raised their eyebrows at one another.
“Alright team Wiggenweld, you’re with me. Team Stew, you’re on your own.”
Fred and George followed Arthur while Ron and Ginny set their steely gazes on the kitchen, a kitchen they had frequently thought of as their mother’s.
As Fred and George brewed Wiggenweld, with Arthur handing them ingredients one by one, he remembered that it was Prince Charming, Prince Charming awoke the girl who ate the bad apple. The differences between Prince Charming and Arthur Weasley needed no enumeration, but in Arthur’s story, he had a chance to wake Molly from her slumber, both literally and figuratively. A life without Molly Weasley was not a life he wanted, a dull life it would be, without her laughter and her wit (even when it was sharply directed his way) and without the passion she brought to everything she did. But while Arthur Weasley had been living a life he was content with, his wife, before his very eyes, had not been. With that unforgivable lack of attention on his part, he hoped to wake Molly to a life lived together more happily.
“Dad, you have to make a wish,” Fred said, looking at his father who was miles away in thought.
“A wish?”
“It’s a superstition, if you want it to work, you make a wish.” His sons looked at him for a long time.
Arthur Weasley wished upon the Wiggenweld that Molly would be happy to come back to them and that she would not curse them for waking her up; he wished for a happier life for Molly and he also wished he could give it to her. In the midst of all his wishing, he struck upon the very thing that would say to her this is a new start, a new life they could build, now that none of their children really needed them anymore, and now that his paycheck (let’s be honest) would stretch a little further.
“Thank you, boys.” Arthur rushed the warm bottle of Wiggenweld up to his wife’s bedside. Arthur watched her for a few moments, remembering the first time he met her in line at the Fortescue’s, when he had just been ten years old, seeing his older brother off to school and Molly was there with her brother, too. She had worn the most magnificent pigtails and had an expression that told him she would never fear anything in life, not even death, and that day he had told her his name was Arthur Weasley to which she replied that she hadn’t asked him his name, but it was nice to meet him just the same, her name was Molly. After this first, auspicious meeting, there was little Molly could do, her fate had been sealed, she had become Arthur Weasley’s true love.
And she was still Arthur Weasley’s true love.
Arthur carefully tipped the Wiggenweld potion to her lips—a full eight hours after she had laid down with her DRAUGHT OF LIVING DEATH—and waited as the color returned to her skin, now flush and pink instead of grey and flat, and she blinked her large, green eyes at him. A smile spread over her face as she stretched.
“Oh, dear, I’ve just had the most marvelous sleep, you can’t imagine,” Molly sighed, wrapping her robe around her even tighter.
“Marvelous, given it seems to evade you,” Arthur said with a smile big enough to light up the room. His wife had not woken up shouting (this was a good sign).
“Why are you grinning at me like that, Arthur?” Molly’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“I’m just so glad to see you well-rested,” he said. This did nothing to quell her suspicion, so he stammered, “If—if you can get ready, I have some plans for us for the evening.”
“Plans?” Molly’s eyes lit up. She flew around the room getting ready, not even interrogating him about dress code or walking or reservations or who would take care of the children.
Arthur rushed downstairs, telling the children to eat the stew and be in bed by nine and warning them that if they complained at all or told their mother what happened he would sic the Boggart in the attic on them. He Transfigured his work slacks and button-down into a grey suit (Molly’s favorite) and transformed his loafers into pointier Oxfords. Molly came down the stairs, a dream, her hair enchanted with gems and her eyes seeming even brighter beneath her grey eye shadow and dark eyeliner. Her dress clung to her form, a sparkling silver and Arthur Weasley cleared his throat, wrapping his arms around her to pull her into a deep, deep kiss.
By the time Molly surfaced from her husband’s lips, they were standing in a dark and quiet lane in Hogsmeade, just outside her favorite restaurant, Bella Roma, an Italian restaurant more like a Muggle restaurant than a Wizarding one in that its name didn’t reference magic and its kitchens cooked traditional Italian cuisine entirely by hand. Molly covered her mouth and squealed, rushing inside. Arthur was pleased to see her excitement and even more pleased to see her backside in that dress.
When they had settled and ordered, Molly and Arthur Weasley clinked their glasses. Molly took a luxurious sip, her dark red lipstick leaving a perfect print on the glass. They were silent for a long time.
“Thank you for rescuing me, Arthur,” Molly finally said, her chin in her palm. “I’m sorry I had to take such drastic action. It’s become unbearable as of late.”
“It’s quite alright, dear,” Arthur said, looking at the napkin in his lap. “I am always happy to be your Prince Charming.”
“Prince Charming?” Molly wrinkled her nose.
“It’s from a Muggle fairy tale.”
Molly laughed and sipped more wine.
“Do you think you would like to travel with me to Italy?”
“Italy?” Molly’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “We can’t afford that.”
“It’s, ah, sort of work related,” he said, smiling nervously as his wife’s gaze grew more skeptical. “I am the delegate to the European Muggle-Wizard Committee and normally, I go by myself. But you could come with me and explore while I’m in those fusty old meetings.”
“Are they always in Italy?”
“Ah, no,” Arthur said. He did not tell his wife that he would be organizing it himself as not only the delegate but also its chair. He also did not tell her it was for her benefit. “We have several members in Eastern and continental Europe, I think they will appreciate a shorter journey.”
“The children,” Molly sighed. “I can’t leave them.”
“They’re adults now, Molly. They will be just fine,” Arthur coaxed.
“Please say yes,” Arthur said. (For he had no backup plan.)
Molly, her face round and bright and well-rested, looked at her husband for an intense moment before she grinned and said, “Yes.”
*
The children received only one postcard in the two weeks their parents were gone. It was an image of the canals of Venice, with Arthur and Molly waving to them from Ponte Rialto.
Glad you weren’t here.
XO, Mom and Dad