Seven Apples

It was the first day of spring. Molly was in the kitchen cooking lunch and Arthur was de-gnoming the garden. As there was no one to inflict a punishment on, he decided to do it himself since what seemed like thousands of gnomes were having a sort of rave. Arthur didn't have to run around trying to catch the gnome as they all were drunk and had passed out. He was thankful that he didn't have to run after them. He was getting older after all! After he threw the last gnome over the fence he just stood there and tried to remember what it was like to have loads of noise around the house. Then he remembered that it was mostly Molly making the noise, shouting at one of the children because they had done something. Molly hadn't raised her voice in years since the last of the seven Weasley children moved out. Arthur heard Molly saying lunch was ready. He walked into the kitchen and he saw the table with two plates of food, two drinks and Molly already sitting down waiting for him. He sat down and they started to eat.

"Um, this is delicious," Arthur, mumbled.

"Thank you, dear. Arthur?"

"Yes, Molly?"

"Shouldn't we start organising for Christmas?"

"Why?"

"Well seeing as we have more people to worry about, I just thought..."

"No problem. We'll make a list straight after lunch."

After lunch Molly found a large piece of parchment and handed it to Arthur. Arthur had put at the top of the list 'Christmas presents'.

"Well how many people are we buying for this year?"

"Oh, I can't think."

"Well let's start with family, shall we."

"Family? It will be December before we finish the list for just family. Can't we do friends first?"

"Come on, we might as well get on with it. It's not going to be that painful to do family first."

"Ok, well let's start with Bill's lot. Well there's Bill of course, Fleur, Alexandrie...Joel...Brigitte...Geneviève...Bill's twins Jack and Harvey and there's baby Zack."

As Molly listed the names of Bill and Fleur's children, Arthur wrote them down on the parchment.

"Got them. Now Charlie's lot."

"Um Charlie, Samantha, Mitch...Danielle...Phil...Charlie's twins Emma and Catherine...Daniel and...Lucy."

"Ok. Percy's lot."

"Percy, Penelope, Peg...Paul...Page...Percy's twins Parker and Paisley...Peter and Penny."

"Uh huh. Fred's lot."

"Fred, Angelina, Faith...Stacey...Tammy...Linda...Amelia...and Fred's twins baby Damian and baby Benny."

"George's."

"George, Katie, Kenneth...Steve...Gerald...Matthew...Ross and George's twins Trisha and Valerie."

"Ron's lot."

"Ron, Hermione, Jade... Ron's twins Lee and Martin...Simon...Tess...Frank and baby Abby."

"And now Ginny's lot."

"Ginny, Harry, James...Lily...Sirius...Ginny's twins Merlin and Neil...Roxanne and...baby Amber."

"There, done."

"Yes but now we have to figure out what we are going to get them and our budget is going to have to be really tight."

"We just need to think. "

It seemed like several hours until Arthur said, "Can't we just buy presents for the kids and you can make some fudge and jumpers for the grandkids?"

"Arthur, you're a genius."

~|~

"Arthur Weasley, I'm going to kill you."

It was 8 months after Molly started making jumpers and fudge for their grandchildren for Christmas. Molly put a freezing charm on the fudge so it wouldn't rot.

"What's wrong, Mollywobbles?"

"Don't you Mollywobbles me! We have forty-nine grandchildren and I have only been able to make twenty-five jumpers and twenty-five pounds of fudge and to top it off it is 1 month till Christmas!" Molly shouted. All that time of not needing to shout had just finished. As soon as Molly stopped shouting she felt comfortable, like going on holiday for years and then coming back to your old bed. She was back!

"Well we wanted the kids to have presents and we don't have a lot of money, this was the only way we knew that no one wasn't going to be getting presents from us" whimpered Arthur.

"Yes but now I barely get any sleep and mostly all the jumpers don't actually look like jumpers. They look more like a kangaroo's legwarmers!"

"Well we can fix that. And we can get you some help with the jumpers and the fudge."

"Oh really, who?"

"Someone from the Ministry, oh how about Tonk..."

"TONKS! She can barely walk without something falling over let alone help me with fudge and jumpers. Knowing her the jumpers will actually be a kangaroo's legwarmers."

"Ok, not Tonks. I'm sure Hermione won't mind helping, I mean she is really good at knitting ever since her hats for the house elves actually looked like hats."

"Hermione, yes. I need to go round to their house now anyway."

Molly grabbed her coat and put it on. She headed for the fireplace then she wheeled around. She kissed Arthur goodbye and went over to the fireplace. Arthur was starting to feel tired so he sat down in his armchair and fell asleep.