Fic: Close to You – for Weasley Jumpers
Jul. 18th, 2021 07:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
paulamcgIf you wouldn't mind a prompt for creating something with at least one Weasley as a main character, come and check out the on-going comment fest on Livejournal and on Dreamwidth (and all the different prompts on each journal).
I've first made an attempt at fanart: The Twins in a Storm.
And now I've tried second-person narration in just a gentle little story:
Title: Close to You
Author: paulamcg
Pairing: Molly Weasley/Amelia Bones, Molly Weasley/Arthur Weasley
Summary: It's the first of September 1989. Molly can finally see Fred and George, too, off at King's Cross, and she's got a ticket to a concert.
Word Count: 950
Rating: G
Notes: Written for the prompt first time at![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
weasleyjumpers, this can be read separately, of course. However, this also follows my Amelia-pov fics Festive Mood and New Joys.
Read here on AO3
or right here:
Close to You
No tears, just the engine's smoke and smudges on the windowpane make the last glimpse of the four of them blurry. The flaming red mops help you spot their compartment, recognise them as yours. A glint on spectacles, as one salutes solemnly with his wand, before he's pushed aside... Yes, by your reliable second-born, who holds the pair of tricksters with their noses flat against the glass, confirming that he'll see them safe through their first school year.
With guilty relief you let your handkerchief make a final wave and return, dry and neat, into your purse.
When you turn to leave the platform, Bill grins and offers his arm to you. Lanky, and with his ponytail, he looks so endearing. Like his father still, beside him with hands on the two little ones' shoulders, looking forward to the fun he's promised them in Muggle London. And like Arthur just out of school, when the two of you had unboarded the train for the last time, and you were ready to leave your life as Molly Prewett behind.
The first boy you dated, so sweet and devoted that you didn't have the heart to look at anyone else.
Today you refuse to place your hand on any wizard's arm.
"You go, the four of you!"
For the first time since you became a Weasley, you'll be on your own. For a moment. And soon on a date.
No secret this time, no eloping.
"All right," Arthur says, glad he doesn't need to stay and wait with you. "You'll meet here at King's Cross."
"Cool that Madam Bones thought of you! Have a great time!"
"You too, my dears!"
"You must tell us all about the concert!" Ginny demands.
"But not sing the songs! Okay, let's go. Bye, Mum!"
The first you heard about her – in the mid-70s – was Gid mocking Fab for having tried to seduce her. The only one who wasn't flirting and just danced by herself when your little brothers' Gryffindor gang were partying. This serious witch gave up neither apprenticeship at the Ministry nor Magical Law at Merlin College.
A couple of years later when Gid described gay clubs, he mentioned that a witch frequented one of them. The ambitious, enviable Amelia, whose amazing life was far beyond your world, which was a closed circle around five small boys by then, soon seven.
After losing your brothers, you barely spared a thought for losing the sight of her as anyone but your husband's more successful colleague. When finally in December 87 Arthur got his first invitation to the Ministry Yule Ball, and you left all the kids home with Bill and Charlie in charge, you felt you had to dare do it, for once, only because you'd fallen in love with Celestina's voice on the Wireless, the most romantic thing in your life.
Although the performance was cancelled, it was fun to dance – and to realise who was staring at you. The new, sensationally young Deputy Head of Law Enforcement in her short haircut and wizard-style dressrobes, and with glitter around her eyes.
On a bench in the ticket hall, you open your purse to check your face in a mirror. Perhaps this excited smile and the flush on the freckled cheeks make you look no older than when the two of you, both tipsy, confessed a shared love for extraordinary female singers, and kissed under a mistletoe.
As in her flat Arthur's attention was on the Muggle devices she used for playing music, you rested your head on her shoulder, and together you started planning when you'd have the chance for more sharing. She's remembered and waited – until the very day you're rid of the twins.
"There you are!" Her strides are long (her shoes sensible), and she's suddenly so close to you that when you hurry to stand up, you end up almost in her arms.
Just almost. She reaches out her right hand, but not to shake yours. She grasps your left, and walks out to the street with you, hand-in-hand.
"When I saw the tour schedule, I felt it was planned for you and me. First of September, London, Wembley Stadium."
"We're going there now?"
"First to my place if you don't mind. To prepare ourselves..."
Smelling her breath as she begins to sing, you wonder if she's already started by drinking some Firewhiskey. "So long ago... you touched my hand."
Next to her on her couch like twenty months ago, you listen to the whole song on that older album as well as all those on the latest one.
"If I live to see the seven wonders..."
She keeps only holding your hand, and you don't dare to make the first move for kissing. After she lost all her friends, your Fab and Gid among them, she's needed a new one, and perhaps this is enough to make her happy.
Entering the huge Muggle structure, you love having her with you. So much closer to you than the fabulous ladies in the band, Stevie and Christine – specks on the stage.
You're making the most of this and not worrying if other moments will come or anything ever develop to such passion that would make you start a new life. This, right now is how you're living your best life.
Chosen by someone for company, and as part of the heaving, ecstatic crowd, you catch glimpses of grinning faces, wild mops of hair... You want to believe that this envigorates your capacity for love, and renews your strength to keep close all of those you've held yours. To help them stay alive in your mind, some also safe in this world.
Notes: The band giving a concert at Wembley Stadium on the day when Molly's twins started at Hogwards was Fleetwood Mac, and the song Amelia sings is Seven Wonders from Tango in the Night (released in 1987).
I've first made an attempt at fanart: The Twins in a Storm.
And now I've tried second-person narration in just a gentle little story:
Title: Close to You
Author: paulamcg
Pairing: Molly Weasley/Amelia Bones, Molly Weasley/Arthur Weasley
Summary: It's the first of September 1989. Molly can finally see Fred and George, too, off at King's Cross, and she's got a ticket to a concert.
Word Count: 950
Rating: G
Notes: Written for the prompt first time at
weasleyjumpers, this can be read separately, of course. However, this also follows my Amelia-pov fics Festive Mood and New Joys. Read here on AO3
or right here:
Close to You
No tears, just the engine's smoke and smudges on the windowpane make the last glimpse of the four of them blurry. The flaming red mops help you spot their compartment, recognise them as yours. A glint on spectacles, as one salutes solemnly with his wand, before he's pushed aside... Yes, by your reliable second-born, who holds the pair of tricksters with their noses flat against the glass, confirming that he'll see them safe through their first school year.
With guilty relief you let your handkerchief make a final wave and return, dry and neat, into your purse.
When you turn to leave the platform, Bill grins and offers his arm to you. Lanky, and with his ponytail, he looks so endearing. Like his father still, beside him with hands on the two little ones' shoulders, looking forward to the fun he's promised them in Muggle London. And like Arthur just out of school, when the two of you had unboarded the train for the last time, and you were ready to leave your life as Molly Prewett behind.
The first boy you dated, so sweet and devoted that you didn't have the heart to look at anyone else.
Today you refuse to place your hand on any wizard's arm.
"You go, the four of you!"
For the first time since you became a Weasley, you'll be on your own. For a moment. And soon on a date.
No secret this time, no eloping.
"All right," Arthur says, glad he doesn't need to stay and wait with you. "You'll meet here at King's Cross."
"Cool that Madam Bones thought of you! Have a great time!"
"You too, my dears!"
"You must tell us all about the concert!" Ginny demands.
"But not sing the songs! Okay, let's go. Bye, Mum!"
The first you heard about her – in the mid-70s – was Gid mocking Fab for having tried to seduce her. The only one who wasn't flirting and just danced by herself when your little brothers' Gryffindor gang were partying. This serious witch gave up neither apprenticeship at the Ministry nor Magical Law at Merlin College.
A couple of years later when Gid described gay clubs, he mentioned that a witch frequented one of them. The ambitious, enviable Amelia, whose amazing life was far beyond your world, which was a closed circle around five small boys by then, soon seven.
After losing your brothers, you barely spared a thought for losing the sight of her as anyone but your husband's more successful colleague. When finally in December 87 Arthur got his first invitation to the Ministry Yule Ball, and you left all the kids home with Bill and Charlie in charge, you felt you had to dare do it, for once, only because you'd fallen in love with Celestina's voice on the Wireless, the most romantic thing in your life.
Although the performance was cancelled, it was fun to dance – and to realise who was staring at you. The new, sensationally young Deputy Head of Law Enforcement in her short haircut and wizard-style dressrobes, and with glitter around her eyes.
On a bench in the ticket hall, you open your purse to check your face in a mirror. Perhaps this excited smile and the flush on the freckled cheeks make you look no older than when the two of you, both tipsy, confessed a shared love for extraordinary female singers, and kissed under a mistletoe.
As in her flat Arthur's attention was on the Muggle devices she used for playing music, you rested your head on her shoulder, and together you started planning when you'd have the chance for more sharing. She's remembered and waited – until the very day you're rid of the twins.
"There you are!" Her strides are long (her shoes sensible), and she's suddenly so close to you that when you hurry to stand up, you end up almost in her arms.
Just almost. She reaches out her right hand, but not to shake yours. She grasps your left, and walks out to the street with you, hand-in-hand.
"When I saw the tour schedule, I felt it was planned for you and me. First of September, London, Wembley Stadium."
"We're going there now?"
"First to my place if you don't mind. To prepare ourselves..."
Smelling her breath as she begins to sing, you wonder if she's already started by drinking some Firewhiskey. "So long ago... you touched my hand."
Next to her on her couch like twenty months ago, you listen to the whole song on that older album as well as all those on the latest one.
"If I live to see the seven wonders..."
She keeps only holding your hand, and you don't dare to make the first move for kissing. After she lost all her friends, your Fab and Gid among them, she's needed a new one, and perhaps this is enough to make her happy.
Entering the huge Muggle structure, you love having her with you. So much closer to you than the fabulous ladies in the band, Stevie and Christine – specks on the stage.
You're making the most of this and not worrying if other moments will come or anything ever develop to such passion that would make you start a new life. This, right now is how you're living your best life.
Chosen by someone for company, and as part of the heaving, ecstatic crowd, you catch glimpses of grinning faces, wild mops of hair... You want to believe that this envigorates your capacity for love, and renews your strength to keep close all of those you've held yours. To help them stay alive in your mind, some also safe in this world.
Notes: The band giving a concert at Wembley Stadium on the day when Molly's twins started at Hogwards was Fleetwood Mac, and the song Amelia sings is Seven Wonders from Tango in the Night (released in 1987).
