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Molly Weasley cast a quick glance over to the fireplace when she heard someone floo in. She expected it to be Ginny or
Charlie or even the twins coming to give her their weekly reports about how they were doing and to ask her the same old
questions: how are you, how are you doing and have you heard from Harry.
She looked up from the dishes she was waving her wand over when she didn't hear anyone calling to her right away.
"Molly?" she heard a quiet voice ask from the other room and she sighed in relief.
"In here, dear," she answered. Hermione had been coming and going from the Burrow long enough that Molly wasn't surprised she had come.
Hermione schlepped into the kitchen, feeling a little better after entering the chaos that was The Burrow. She plunked herself down at the table, but said nothing as she glanced around.
This house had always seemed so much brighter when she was a child, so full of life. Then again, when she had been a child there were still four children and two parents living in this house. Now there was only Molly and Ginny when she came home on the weekends.
Molly turned to look at Hermione and they locked eyes for a moment and she sighed, wordlessly putting on the kettle for tea before sitting down. "What did that bone headed son of mine do now?" she asked, a slight smile on her face.
"It's not Ron," she answered, shaking her head as she ran a hand through her hair. Molly understood what this was all about now.
"Now, now, it can't be all that bad," she replied.
"He can't even fly any more."
"Have you seen him try?" Hermione shook her head as she wiped her nose with the back of her hand, trying to maintain some sort of composure. Molly reached out a hand to Hermione. "He was just making a show then. You know Harry, always the center of attention," she concluded, making a stab at some humor. Hermione obviously didn't get it. An awkward silence filled the room, broken only by Hermione's snuffles and finally the kettle¹s shrill cry.
"Come on, Hermione dear. This isn't a kitchen table conversation," Molly said as she pulled Hermione to her feet, handed her a cup of tea and ushered her into the living room.
Mrs. Weasley made several attempts to pull more information out about Harry but the most she got was that he was staying at Hermione's flat and had headed off to do God knows what with Ron a few minutes before Hermione had come to The Burrow.
"And I can't even be sure that the most I'll have to do is get the drunken prats home in one piece. Merlin only knows what the two of them will do together," Hermione concluded as she stared into her cup. Molly frowned. She knew that Ron meant well, but Hermione was right, who knew what the two of them would get up to other than a little mild debauchery.
"Ron's a good man, he'll keep Harry out of trouble," she reasoned.
"Ron also still has a case of follow the leader when it comes to Harry,"
Hermione pointed out. "And Harry¹s so mad at everything and at himself."
Molly kept her mouth shut, having seen Ginny go on like this many times before.
"And he just keeps it all inside. The closest I've seen him come to wearing colours all month are the dark red and dark blue shirts he has. Everything else is black! He hardly talks any more, hardly eats and just stares out that damned window!" Hermione stopped her self for a moment. She hadn't meant for this to all come out like this, but it was and she couldn't stop it.
"He just has a lot to deal with, its going to take him some time to sort it all out," Molly reasoned.
"And he doesn't think the rest of us have a lot to deal with?" she asked.
"He doesn't think that on top of everything else I sit there day after day watching him wondering what he'll do next, worry about him?" Hermione demanded as she jumped to her feet and lost her last bit of control.
She hurled the mug across the wall and watched it smash against the brick fireplace before stomping out the door and into the yard toward the small forest behind the house.
Molly didn't try to stop her. She simply took her wand and cleaned up the tea, repairing the mug before walking calmly to the window. She wanted to do more, wanted to go after her but she knew Hermione far too well to go and do that. Hermione Granger had always been a girl who couldn't do everything at once, but tried to.
Molly knew that Hermione as going to stomp off into the forest, find that little pond she and the boys spent so many hours around and sit for a few hours; working things out for herself. She'd collect her thoughts and arrange them in as logical an order as she could before finally wandering back to the house, embarrassed by her out burst, sorry for breaking the cup and making a scene.
Molly knew her job at this point was to simply wrap that babbling girl in her arms and hold on; knowing that the ramblings would cease and the rest of the story would finally come out.
She glanced out the window as she put the cups in the sink and frowned at the clouds that had suddenly rolled over. She heard the thunder in the back ground sighed before going to start a fire, heat some blankets and dig up some clothes Ginny had left behind. She knew Hermione was going to stay out in the thunderstorm, by the pond, until her fingers were numb and her anger had rolled on.
She knew this because it was the kind of thing a mother needed to know to take care of her children and she was going
to do that, even if the two that needed her the most didn't have red hair and blue eyes.
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