Sunshine or Shadows

Chapter 11. Caught Marauding.

Molly knocked on the awful red paint that covered the door to Ron and Harry's flat and scrunched her nose involuntarily. "Why on Earth would someone choose such a color?" she muttered under her breath. From the look of the other doors she'd passed up and down the hallway, she guessed that the owner of the apartment building either wasn't very good at casting Colouring charms or had gotten a good deal on tomato-coloured paint.

Ron had sent an owl at breakfast-time, imploring Molly and Arthur to join the two bachelors, Hermione, and Jack and Charlotte Granger for dinner, adding, "and if you wouldn't mind coming a bit earlier...we might be able to use help in the kitchen." Molly jumped at the chance, Aparrating to the unfamiliar building on Macduff Street at six o'clock flat - an hour ahead of her husband. But the fact that neither boy seemed to be home to receive her call was giving her second thoughts as to what kind of dinner she had been asked to help prepare.

She knocked again and arranged her face into a pleasant smile, awaiting an answer. When none came, she knocked one more time and then gave the brass knob a cautious turn, opening the door just a hair.

"Hello? Ron, Harry, is anyone in?" she called out. Hesitantly, she entered the flat, finding herself to be in a small welcoming area with a large, wrought iron umbrella stand, a hall mirror, and a line of mismatched hooks decorating the small opening.

"I'm here," she called again.

Deciding that she'd leave the door slightly ajar, so as not to alarm the boys when they did arrive, Molly shed her cloak and hung it on one of the hooks, adding her purse, hat and scarf on neighboring hooks.

Her eyes scanned the floor ahead of her and she smiled as the flat opened itself up. The natural lighting was good, which was always a plus - the boys would only need to light the sconces and candles in the morning and evening. And, she thought, although it was about two decades out of date, Molly found it comforting that the flat was wallpapered. It wasn't anything fancy or feminine, but the sitting room ahead of her was swathed in blue and beige, with barely discernable gold anchors patterning the paper. Navy sofas, a large brass mirror over the hearth, and the smartly covered walls gave the place a distinctive, nautical look.

"Arthur," she thought, "our son has done well for himself."

Moving to the sofa to make herself comfortable, she allowed her thoughts to dwell on her sweet, funny Ron and how he seemed to have come out just fine at the end of his adolescence - even after running away and living in the wild for nearly half a year. Miracles sometimes did occur, it would seem.

As she sat there, pondering the fortunes of her sixth son, a glimmer of light alerted Molly to the fact that she wasn't alone in the flat after all. The fireplace was lit; and lying on the loveseat next to her, curled up and dead to the world, scarcely noticeable under a giant Chuddly Cannons blanket, was a sleeping Harry Potter.

"Oh, the poor dear," she thought. "He must be exhausted, working at the Ministry and going to school at the same time. He didn't even hear me come in."

It was a bit awkward, Molly realized, to find herself sitting in the quiet flat next to her daughter's dozing boyfriend. She cleared her throat to try and wake him, hoping to avoid startling the boy. As she watched, the dim firelight danced across his sleeping form and her heart fluttered a bit: it had suddenly occurred to her that this boy had turned into quite a catch. What used to be a skinny frame had matured into what she supposed one would describe as long and lean. Harry no longer looked neglected, as he had when she first laid eyes on him, though she rather doubted he would ever be accused of having a pound or two to spare.

He had such a nice face, Molly considered. She smiled, filling up with fondness for Harry even as something in the back of her mind whispered a gentle warning that such musings just may be rather inappropriate. But she couldn't help but become swept up in a gush of pride too that her Harry had grown up into such a handsome young man. There were the beginnings of a five-o'clock shadow on his square jaw, and the outline of his eyes looked so appealing without his glasses - which she noted were tucked safely away, for once, on the sofa table. How many times, Molly thought, had she found that boy asleep on their own sofa at the Burrow, with the wire stems bent between his hand and his ear.

It filled her with delight - and again, pride - that Ginny had mustered the courage and stamina necessary to finally end up with this boy for whom she'd always longed. That girl had certainly been given plenty of reason to give up over the years, and it was likely down to pure stubbornness that she hadn't. But staring at Harry now on the other side of all that he had accomplished, Molly felt a bit like doing a little victory dance for her daughter and the girl's considerable charms. These two were still very young, but seemed so perfectly suited to each other that it was hard to avoid marveling at Ginny's foresight. It wasn't hard to imagine a wedding in the not-so-distant future between the two.

A log shifted in the fireplace and the embers drowned out enough of the flame that Molly got out her wand, distracted for the moment from gazing at what could very well be her future son-in-law, to levitate another log onto the burning pile. She sent a silent Accendo incantation and watched as the fresh wood became instantly engulfed. The room brightened up considerably with the larger fire, which allowed Molly to catch site of a scroll that was lying on the table, pinned open beneath Harry's glasses and a half-full glass of pumpkin juice.

It was a strange thing - dirty and aged-looking, with little moving footprints splattered across neatly drawn lines and boxes. Summoning her reading glasses from her pocketbook, Molly set them atop her nose and stared at the scroll of parchment, squinting her eyes in scrutiny.

By the time Harry stirred, Molly had worked out the gist of what the strange scroll was, and what it did. She felt certain that the boy had fallen asleep studying an enchanted map of Hogwarts - watching for signs of Ginny, most likely. He may have been keeping an eye out for Dementors at the gates on the edge of the scroll, or making sure that the names of any sons or daughters of known Death Eaters stayed clear of the little "Ginny Weasley" that she'd spotted in the box marked, "Great Hall". But it was far more likely that this busy young man was just looking to feel close to his girlfriend, after a long day of studying and working, by just watching her movements. The gesture touched Molly deeply.

"Mrs. Weasley?"

Molly felt her cheeks burn. Harry was awake.

"Um...have you been here long?" Harry asked, sitting up and gathering his blanket into a pile.

"Oh, not long," Molly said. She looked down at the nifty little magical parchment that she was holding in her hands and then back to Harry. If there was any way to get the two of them out of the conversation that was about to unfold, she thought, it would be worth a sack of gold to find it. But at the moment, confessing seemed the only logical thing to do.

"I...well..." she began.

Harry stood up and folded his blanket, hiding his face for a split second as he levitated the fluffy, orange pile to a large basket in the corner of the room. "That parchment," he said, "was given to me by...by the twins, actually."

Molly gasped, but Harry prevented her mind from zooming through all of the uses Fred and George would have dreamt up for a scroll such as the one she held by offering an embarrassed, knowing smile.

"It was my father's before them," he offered, "so I guess you could say that it's been in the family. He and his friends made it."

"I see," Molly said, intrigued now.

"I um...it shows where everyone is in the castle." Harry brought a hand up to the back of his neck and scratched for a second before blowing a breath.

"I've worked out the gist of it," Molly offered. "What a wonderful gift this is, then, from your dad. It must have felt comforting, dear, to be able to have something that your father made. How truly special."

"Well," Harry said. "The truth is, this used to get me into more trouble that it got me out of - at Hogwarts. That's why I decided not to hand it down to anyone. I just use it sometimes to keep an eye on...everyone."

Molly smiled. "Anyone I know?" she asked, cocking an eyebrow and flicking her wand to straighten the folds in the blanket Harry had stowed.

"Maybe," Harry said. He smirked a bit, Molly thought, but covered it quickly. "How long was I asleep?" he asked, suddenly. "Is it seven already?"

"Relax, dear," Molly soothed. "I believe Arthur will be here at seven sharply, but Ron asked me to come and help out with the preparations." She swung her head around and looked about the flat again for signs of life in the kitchen. "I can't imagine where he is now," she said, pushing back the sleeve of her robes and checking her watch. "It's a quarter past six already."

Harry threw on his glasses and dashed into the kitchen, thrashing his wand about to summon vegetables from the icebox. He looked up at Molly, when she followed him in the room, his eyes wide with the desperation of any young person attempting a grown-up task for the first time. It was a strange look to see on Harry, Molly mused: it had been such a long time since she could remember him looking anything but confident.

"Will you help us?" he asked. "Ron is at...he'll be here in a bit, I'm sure, but the recipe book Hermione bought us calls for at least twenty minutes' worth of spells to get everything going, and I only know how to cook in the Muggle way."

Molly smiled. "Of course I'll help, dear. You just point me to the tinderbox, and we'll have this meal cooking in five minutes, flat." She snorted. "Twenty minutes, indeed! What kind of cookbooks are they selling these days!"