Behind
July, 1978
Whether the spots dancing about the kitchen were from tiredness or from the brilliantly sunny morning, Arthur couldn't tell. Between his increasingly stressful Ministry duties and long shifts with the Order of the Phoenix, it was not uncharacteristic of Arthur to be up for two days straight. Noting his somewhat zombie-like appearance, Moody had threatened to light a fire beneath him unless he got home to his family and had a good, long sleep and a few square meals. Arthur didn't need much convincing. He was tired enough that he Apparated a few miles from the Burrow, and so, finding that he didn't have the energy to Apparate again, he walked home in the warm morning.
The house, despite being occupied by five children, was notably quiet. The kitchen was spotless, and he could hear the twins fussing in his bedroom. Groaning slightly at the thought of his bedroom, he stumbled toward it in the hopes that Molly would still be asleep so that he could just slide in beside her and have a well-needed snuggle as he drifted off to sleep.
The bedroom looks rather flowery, he thought thickly as he stepped in the doorway of his room. He then realized that it was in fact flowery fabric that had been thrown over his face when he'd staggered in. He reached up to remove it and saw Molly running madly about the bedroom in her underclothes, half the closet unloaded on the bed. She was whispering to herself under her breath and kept moving to the closet and then swerving away from it as she got close.
"Molly?" Arthur asked hesitantly.
"Oh, Arthur!" she cried, rising and throwing her arms around him.
"What's wrong? What's happened? Are the boys all right?" Arthur suddenly felt wide awake as he cupped her face with his hand.
"Oh, yes, they're all fine," she sniffed. Arthur noticed that she was crying.
"Then who? What's happened?"
Molly's lower lip quivered. "Oh, Arthur, everyone's fine, I'm so sorry, look at the mess I've become, and over nothing…." She glanced behind her at the pile of clothes and then looked away.
Arthur looked from the heap of dresses back at Molly. "Come on," he said quietly, guiding her to the bed where they sat down together. Fred and George gurgled quietly in the corner. "Tell me what the matter is."
"It's… silly," she insisted, and waved a hand. She forced a smile and patted him fondly on the cheek. "I'm so glad to have you home."
"Ah ah, you're not getting out of this so easily. Nothing is silly if it's upset you so."
Molly sniffed again, chin quivering. "Arthur… do you still find me attractive?"
Perhaps it was the tiredness, but this struck Arthur as a very odd question. "Of course I do. You're just as beautiful as you were when I married you."
"Oh Arthur, do you mean it?"
"Merlin, yes. Where on earth is this coming from?"
Molly gazed at Arthur with tear-filled eyes. "I-I was just trying on m-my summer dresses, because it's such a beautiful day out there, a-and…" her face contorted. "I don't fit into any of them! Not one! I'm too fat for them!"
Arthur was one again deeply puzzled. "But Molly… you're not fat. Here, try this one –" and he held up one of the dresses heaped beside him on the bed.
"Oh, Arthur, I've got far too much behind for that dress!Look!" she demanded, jumping up from the bed. "Look at me! I'm not the slender girl you married anymore, Arthur!
Arthur was shaking his head slowly. He was still holding the dress. His head felt full of cotton. "Molly… I hate to agree with you," he began. Molly's eyes teared up again. "But you are indeed being dreadfully silly. There is absolutely nothing wrong with how you look." Molly's look of apprehension dissolved into one of deep affection. "Listen carefully to me, please. You're projecting your worry about me and the boys and your brothers onto yourself. You are not being fair to yourself at all. You've had children inside you for 36 months since I married you. You gave birth to twins three months ago. I never had any expectation of you keeping the figure you had when we met. In fact, I've never given much thought to your figure at all. I fell in love with Molly Prewett the woman, not the image."
"Oh, Arthur," she whispered for the fourth time, and threw her arms around him again. "You're quite right, of course, I've been so worried about everything, this one little thing just pushed me into tears and from there, and…" she swallowed heavily. "Oh, are you sure, are you quite sure that you don't mind that I… wobble?"
Arthur smiled tiredly and kissed her. "You are lovely, and your wobbles are lovely. You are my lovely Mollywobbles."
"Mollywobbles!" Molly exclaimed and fell into a spiel of giggles.
Arthur gave two short bursts of laughter as he leaned back against the pillows. "Mollywobbles," he repeated deliriously, then gave two more sharp bursts of laughter.
"Arthur, if you ever call me that in public, I swear I'll –" but she broke off at the sight of Arthur's slack face; he had fallen dead asleep, fully clothed and lying sideways on the bed. She smiled affectionately at him and kissed him in his sleep, wiping the last of her tears off her face.
"Mum?" came a shy voice from the door. Bill was standing at the door, Charlie hovering behind him. "We reckon Percy's wet the bed again, he keeps saying 'no' when we try to prod him from the bed."
"He's being Stubbard," Charlie added helpfully.
"That's stubborn, Charlie, Stubbard is the man that daddy works with."
"Oh yeah."
"All right, boys. You go on down to the kitchen. Bill, you can make toast for you and Charlie, I'll be down soon with your brothers to make you some eggs."
"Okay, mum," the two eldest chorused and trooped downstairs in their jammies.
Molly threw on her witch's robes as usual and smiled as she looked at herself in the mirror. "Mollywobbles indeed," she muttered to herself and burst into laughter at the absurdity of it.
Yet every time Molly started to panic in the troubled years that followed, Arthur would hold onto her tightly and whisper the nickname in her ear, and she'd remember that everything would be just fine as long as she had Arthur.