A/N: Whaddup Potterheads? This is my first fanfiction in a while – I'm not really sure where I'm heading with this, or how long I'll keep it going for but I hope you enjoy nonetheless. Disclaimer: All plots and characters belong to JK Rowling. Dialogue in bold is taken straight from the books. Happy reading!

THE BOY WHO LIVED

MOLLY

The Burrow resembled a haunted tower under the full moon, but that didn't bother its inhabitants one bit. As far as Molly Weasley was concerned, the ghostly orb could hang there all night, every night, so long as it didn't become the smoky, serpent-tongued skull when her back was turned. Tonight may be Halloween, but any horrors that swept their house would be very, very real.

Molly knew this as well as anyone. Her brothers, Fabian and Gideon, had been brutally murdered by five Death Eaters mere weeks ago. That evening, racked with grief, she had waited for her husband and the Ministry investigators to return. Her brothers had died heroes' deaths, the investigators had told her, but the Death Eaters had performed such unspeakably Dark magic upon the bodies that they were unable to be recovered. All that remained was a beautiful gold watch, in which stars still moved around the face.

Molly had taken Fabian's watch in shaking hands, and the familiar dent in the back of it felt like her brother's last farewell. She laid it on the kitchen window-sill and placed a simple Impervius Charm upon it, so that dust would never settle upon its face.

The watch remained as spotless as ever to this Halloween, the day the Weasleys' lives, and the lives of every wizard and witch across the world, would change forever.

In the master bedroom, Molly lowered her tiny, sleeping daughter into a cot, and kissed her on the forehead. She tapped the cot with her wand and it began rocking gently back and forth. After a few minutes of listening to Ginny's soft breathing, Molly heard someone knocking at the front door.

She froze, prickly fear spreading through her. Arthur shouldn't be back from the Ministry for another hour, and they rarely had visitors. A month ago, she would have disregarded the possibility of it being Death Eaters knocking respectfully on her door, but she had learned that nowadays not everyone acted as expected, that no one – except, of course, her husband – could be trusted.

Molly crept into the kitchen and checked the grandfather clock. To her great relief, she saw that Arthur's hand had swung from 'work' to 'home'.

'Arthur?'

'Yes, dear,' came the weary voice from outside.

They exchanged their prearranged security questions and Arthur stepped through. The howling winds were dispelled when the door snapped behind him. He looked exhausted and somewhat dazed.

'You're home early –' began Molly, but the rest of her sentence became muffled as Arthur brought her into a hug.

'He's gone, Molly,' croaked Arthur, breaking apart. 'He's gone, it's over. It's finally over.'

It took Molly a few seconds to cotton on, then she covered her mouth with a hand.

'You-Know-Who?' she breathed. 'He's – he's gone?'

Arthur nodded and smiled weakly. He slipped off his travelling cloak absently-mindedly and collapsed on a chair at the kitchen table, where he removed his glasses and wiped his eyes.

'What happened?' Molly whispered.

'Hard to be sure … only rumours … From what they're saying at the Ministry, he was at Godric's Hollow and …' Arthur sighed heavily. 'He murdered them, Molly. Lily and James Potter.'

Molly gasped.

'Lily and …? Oh, Arthur, that's awful. They were so young, so happy … they got married only last year, didn't they? Goodness … and their son –'

'Is still alive,' said Arthur, pouring himself a sizeable glass of Firewhisky. 'I think Dumbledore's sent Hagrid to collect him from the wreckage. It was the son who stopped him, Molly. No one knows what really happened, but word is that You-Know-Who tried to kill him too, and couldn't. The boy broke him.'

He took a healthy swig of Firewhisky and continued, 'Of course, I'll only believe it when Dumbledore says it's true. But he's gone, Molly. He's definitely gone.'

Molly was lost for words. She was filled with a whole spectrum of emotion, but her overriding feeling was that of sheer, unadulterated relief. For years they had been living in the shadows of fear and lies and paranoia – now it was as though they had awoken from a long, tortuous nightmare. As Arthur said, it was finally over.

Molly was brought back to the present by soft footfalls on the stairs; the feet, then pyjamas and groggy face of their eldest son appeared.

'William, dear,' Molly said softly, rushing to hug him. The image of Lily and James's tiny son trapped in a ruin of a house burst vividly into her mind at that particular moment. Heaven forbid if that ever happened to one of her children. 'What are you doing down here?'

'I can't sleep,' said Bill, looking slightly bewildered at his mother's tight embrace. 'Dad, can I have a bedtime story?'

Unlike Bill, Arthur could barely keep his eyes open. Blinking awake, he replaced his glasses and smiled, 'Course you can, Bill.'

While Molly cleared the table and extinguished the lamps with her wand, Arthur followed Bill up the many stairs, where the heavy breathing of Bill's brothers could be heard, and into Bill's room. Moonlight streamed in through the gap in the broomstick-patterned curtains, illuminating the small safe on the bedside table, guarded by a snoozing model goblin, in which Bill kept his pocket money.

Arthur twitched the curtains shut and sat on the side of the bed, where he gently stroked Bill's red hair.

'I've got a new bedtime story for you tonight,' he said. 'I think you'll like it.'

Closing his eyes, Bill said sleepily, 'Does it have a happy ending?'

'Yes,' smiled Arthur. 'Yes it does … See, there was once a wizard. A very bad wizard. The worst there ever was …'