Knitting Needles

Knitting Needles

Click-click-click.

The needles felt heavier than ever before in my hands as they repeated their daily routine. Through-wrap-pullunder-out-loopoff-repeat. Needle to needle the thread moves. Backandforthneverending movements of yarn in so many different colors, one for each of them...

"You hold them this way," my mother had whispered on my fifteenth birthday, putting her precious knitting needles into my hands. The needles I'd grown old with hearing, the repeating clicking sounds and from them, a beautiful creation. I was afraid to hold them. Mum understood and wove her hands through mine, helping my support the needles--showing me the way. "And the yarn goes like this."

-redandgreenandyellowandbrownandblueandpinkandgrayblackwhiteperiwinkletanpurple-

My first square was full of holes and mistakes, so unlike my mother's perfect patterns. I couldn't bare the shame of seeing my work next to hers. I threw it into the fire and turned just in time to see my mother's white face and her arm outstretched...

"Molly Weasley?"

"It's freezing in here," one of the seventh years had said to his friend in November. "-I need to ask my mum to make me a blanket or something."

For Christmas he opened a gift, a sweater. I'll never forget the look on his face as he walked down from his room; without a card, without any name, he knew who it had been from.

A year later on Christmas morning, he opened the gift from his new wife--blue baby's socks, knitted with perfection. His smile lit our tiny apartment.

"We need to finish off the tests. By this afternoon it will all be over. Can you please come with us?"

My mum sobbed uncontrollably as Albus stroked her shoulder. Moody and Crouch stared uncomfortably from the corner. "They died well," all three of them had said at least once.

'To hell with how they'd died' I'd replied back each time. 'All that matters is that they're dead.'

From the back room I could hear our five sons running around as though the world were perfect. As though the world was the way it used to be when a simple sweater made a man fall in love with a girl; when the clicking of my mum's knitting needles was steady and rhythmic.

I moved away from the Order despite Arthur's protests. I went into the room where my sons were and picked up my mum's old needles once more.

I knitted mittens for my two brave brothers to wear for eternity so they didn't get cold.

What gauge had I started with? They were pinkishblueyyellowithink. Ones for two sickles in the bargain store.

"She's clinically insane. Her memories are shot, her thoughts are non-existent. She just sits there like a vegetable, knitting day and night. There's no use for her anymore. Let's just be rid of her; that way the whole bloody Order is gone and we can move on."

Ten gauge or nine and a half?

The moment I saw Ginny step onto the train for her first time, it hit me. We were alone again; no more children running around and breaking things and pulling on my arms...

I knitted sweaters for them all so that they could stay warm in the coldest of times.

I'd been there; been at Hogwarts the night that the Dark Lord returned. Seen the boy who was, essentially, my seventh son go to hell and back. Been there for him the next summer when he had to face the world. Been there for him when he faced the loss of his godfather... and when every trace of innocence that he had once had disappeared at the end of his sixth year... every time I held my needles and knitted something new for him, though most of it never got there.

Nine gauge and a twelve for Ginny's sixth birthday scarf.

"We have he go ahead. Malfoy checked with our master and he agreed. They said just to make sure that the reporters saw the death so that the world can see the end of the Order. The end of our resistance." A laugh. "It's over! Seventeen years of war, and now it's finally over! We can be with the ones we love and not fear attacks every day... it's perfect. The world is at peace again, thank Merlin! We have everything we could ever dream of!"

The three of them didn't come back for the wedding.

They didn't come back for Arthur's funeral, or Percy's, or Bill's or George's or...

The last time I saw them was at Ginny's funeral.

I was in the corner, knitting. I couldn't think of anything else to do. I just wanted something I knew... something that would always be there and be the same...

Harry's eyes weren't the same. They weren't green but a dull gray as though they had been slammed over and over into the walls and lost everything they once held.

"I'm sorry," he'd whispered. He thought it was his fault.

I knitted. A beautiful hat for the first of the grandkids...

"Give us three days, and this will be over. Three days, please, Mrs. Weasley..."

Ron had come to my side. Funny how the most average of all our family would be the only one to survive...

"I love you, Mum."

The needles moved as if in their own accord. Ron bit his lip and walked over to Hermione.

Harry gripped my shoulder. He understood.

"Make me a blanket, will you Mum? I want to be warm when this is over."

"Welcome to the end of the war!"

Cheers from a crowd I couldn't see.

My hands kept knitting, though more frantically. I wasn't yet finished with the blanket Harry had asked me for.

"Ten years ago, Harry Potter killed himself in an attempt to make our lord mortal. He had miscalculated--the locket our lord had placed a bit of himself in was indeed safe. Thus ended our struggles against the rebels who would have, in time, destroyed us all! So here's to the end of our struggles and the end of the war!"

The last row, more than halfway through. Only a few more stitches left.

"The final member of the Order of the Phoenix is here today. With her departure comes a ray of hope for the future--a world with brightness for our children and our fathers!"

Five.

"Goodbye, resistance."

Two.

"Enjoy hell."

Done.

"Avada Kedavra!"

I hesitated for a moment, then raised my head up. Harry was sitting there next to me, holding one end of the blanket. "It's perfect, mum. Thanks."

I stood slowly and faced my family, all to my side.

My mother's old knitting needles fell to the ground as I walked to my family, ready to fly.