The Battle over Little Whinging had been a difficult one. Mad-Eye Moody had been lost, a Killing Curse struck mid-flight as the Order transported Harry from Privet Drive to the Burrow. George Weasley barely avoided death himself and, as it stood, had been maimed, his ear sacrificed to a dark spell cast by a Death Eater. The losses weighed heavily on everyone, and after a few hours rest at the Weasley home, they departed for their various safe houses and duties, praying for a swift end to the war in which they now lived.

That night, as Arthur bade goodbye to the last Order member, he glanced up at his bedroom window where his wife sat, staring out into the swamp at the thunderstorm brewing in the distance.

He sighed.

The only times Molly sat staring like that was when she was upset, and between everything that had happened that evening, and nearly all evenings in recent memory, she had good reason to be feeling poorly.

Bowing his head, he slowly climbed the stairs, feeling decades older than his 46 years. After several of the rickety flights, he came to his bedroom at the top of the house and opened the door. Molly whipped around, instinctively drawing her wand to direct at his heart, promptly dropping it and bursting into tears when she realized what she had done.

Arthur rushed to her side at the window seat, taking her in his arms and holding her tight as she cried, marveling at how, even after nearly 30 years of marriage, she still managed to fit so perfectly against him, her head finding its way into the crook of his neck, her once copper-hair, now lighter and flecked with gray, brushed against his cheek and tickled him in a comforting sort of way.

"Oh, Arthur," she sobbed, "I'm so sorry. I just—I thought—I can't do this anymore."

"Shhh," he whispered back, rocking her back and forth, "there now. You're the strongest woman I've ever met. Just what is it that you can't do?"

She pushed him away, getting more upset.

"This, Arthur!" she yelled, gesturing down to her hands, the nail beds still stained an angry red with the blood from George's ear wound. "I can't do this! I can't deal with the bloodshed anymore! Not of my friends, not of my children! Not anymore, not again!"

Arthur looked down sadly. "Mollywobbles…"

"Don't!" she interrupted. "Don't Mollywobbles me, Arthur! Our boy almost died tonight! Alastor did! Who's it going to be next, Arthur? Ron next time? Fred? Ginny?"

"No! No it won't!" Arthur replied, standing, his voice raised to match his wife's, secretly hoping she'd applied a silencing charm to the room before the conversation began. "I won't let it!"

Molly stood up too, angrily removing her blood soaked apron and thrusting it at his chest. "Can you promise me that? Can you promise that I won't have to wear my children's blood on my hands tomorrow? Or the next day?Or the next? Can you promise they won't end up like Fabian and Gideon?"

"No, alright!" Arthur shouted, his emotions boiling over at the mention of Molly's late brothers, his best friends, slain during the First War all those years ago. "I can't promise that! You know that! I'm a wizard, Molly, not a psychic, not a God, just a bloke with a wand!"

Molly dropped to the bed, her fair skin even paler.

"You can't ask that of me. It isn't fair," he continued, quieter.

"I know," she muttered, closing her eyes, refusing to look at him, too tired to argue.

He sat down beside her, wrapping his arms around her again.

"I can only swear to do the best I can. For you, for the children, for everyone."

"I know," she repeated, the tears once again threatening to spill, "I just feel so paralyzed. Like I can't protect them. They're my babies, Arthur. Harry, too."

Leaning back, Arthur smiled sadly, taking her chin in his hand. "I know you're scared. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't. I don't know what tomorrow may bring, what we'll have to do. But for now, in this moment, here with you and I, we're safe. We're warm. We're together."

He brushed a stray lock of ginger hair back behind her ears. She blushed, eyes downcast, as he kissed her. It was tentative, gentle, like the first time, all those years ago, and Molly smiled softly at the memory.

"Oh, Arthur, I love…"

She returned the kiss, more urgent this time, and sighed as she felt his hand brush her thigh.

"I love you, too, Molly Weasley."

As the lamplight slowly dimmed and the rainstorm broke out over the Burrow, Molly and Arthur reacquainted themselves with an act with which they were intimately familiar, and for the first time in a long while, Molly had never felt safer… entwined in her husband's arms.