A/N: Um, yeah, hi. After a year or more I'm still kicking around in the FF world a little. My goal is to finish at least this story. Thank you all for reading!

Molly and Lucy - It's Gone

Molly tossed stuffed animals and books and odd socks out of her way until her fingers brushed the baseboards, squinting through the dusty half-light.

"I don't see it, Luce," she called, wriggling out from under the bed, her hair frizzing out in a wild, crimson halo flecked with dust. "Did you check the wardrobe?"

"Of course I checked the wardrobe!" her little sister wailed, flinging open the wardrobe door and starting to throw sweaters and stockings wildly over her shoulder. She wrenched open desk drawers so hard they came off their rollers, emptied the clothes hamper in a heap on the rug. "It's not anywhere!"

"Of course it's somewhere," Molly sighed, gathering up the garments. "It has to be somewhere. Necklaces don't just vanish." She dumped the heap of clothes into Lucy's arms. "Look, Luce, I have an essay to write because I'm in school. You're on your own."

She headed for the corridor, brushing dust off her robes. Lucy let the clothes spill to the floor until she stood in a dune of material.

It's gone, it's gone. Her breath started to come too fast. She pushed her fingers through her bobbed hair until it stood on end. "It's gone!"

Molly turned around at the door. Tears glittered like diamonds as they slipped down her little sister's round cheeks. It looked like the world was melting around her or something. Molly thought regretfully of the essay she'd have to finish on the train tomorrow. She hated the students who finished their work on the train.

She crossed back to Lucy and used the sleeve of her robes to mop up the tears. Only for her sister.

"Of course it's not gone. Miss Drama Queen. Now let's start looking properly."

Molly and Fred – Foolish

"Molly, oh come on, don't be like that," Fred called, hurrying after her down the narrow, empty corridor. "It was a joke!"

He'd known she would take it the wrong way – she always took it the wrong way – but, Merlin, she just made it so easy. More than that, she made it damn near impossible to resist, talking the way she did, as if she knew everything. It was like she didn't even realize every word that came out of her mouth was grating under everyone's skin. It was his familial obligation to try to help her learn when to shut up, wasn't it?

"Look, I'm sorry, okay?" he called because, even though he wasn't really, he felt a small, reflexive twinge of guilt all the same. Molly slowed to a stop, now at the other end of the corridor. "I shouldn't have said it. So, are we good?" He wanted to get this taken care of. Louis was trying to juggle butterbeer bottles back in the common room.

She bent her head for a moment then turned around, revealing the streaks of dried tear tracks striping her cheeks. And suddenly the party and the jokes seemed a lot less amusing.

"No, Fred, I don't think we are," she said, shaking her head. "You see, you think it's just a laugh, the things you say. You and James. But it makes me feel… it – it –" she was searching the air before her for the proper words, "it makes a joke out of me, alright? It makes everything about me feel foolish. "

For once in his life, Fred Weasley didn't have much to say. But as she turned and disappeared up a rickety staircase concealed behind a tapestry, he got the distinct impression that she wasn't the one who ought to be feeling foolish.

Molly and Roxanne – Shooting Star

Molly didn't know what to say. She never knew what to say in cases like this. She wasn't even sure that Roxanne knew she knew. Lucy had told her, but Lucy'd only found out from Dominique who'd had to hear it from Fred. Gran didn't know. At least, Molly didn't think she did. How was she supposed to say anything without Gran overhearing and the whole afternoon going up in smoke? But if Roxanne did know that she, Molly, had heard – or just assumed that word had gotten around to all the cousins as it inevitably always did – then she was likely expecting something, wasn't she?

Dominique was talking to her, even getting her to smile a little. Dominique always knew what to say. Lucy was curled up beside her, flipping through Witch Weekly, but somehow here quiet presence was enough of a gesture. Lucy never said anything, anyway. But quiet did not fit Molly, never had. She was just standing there in the corner of the kitchen while Gran bustled around making sandwiches and Dominique kept giving her looks over Lucy's head as if she were supposed to do something or not do something but she had no idea what.

It was just, for all that she did not get Roxanne, the girl had always been… well, a shooting star. The sort of person whose beauty and boundless flight you felt you could make wishes upon. But, after all, shooting stars were really flaming pieces of rock plummeting to the earth's surface at crater-causing velocities, so perhaps they all should have seen this coming.

Molly and Rose – Threat

That round, red O at the top of the essay looked, Molly thought, like a surprised face, as if the grade itself couldn't quite believe it had been placed on this particular essay. Or maybe it couldn't quite believe the little gold first place sticker stuck in the corner next to it. Advances in Muggle Technology and Their Potential for Magical Advancements, by Rose Weasley, perfect grade, winner of the The Bridge Magazine's third annual essay contest, 3rd-5th year category, and place of honor on Gran and Granddad's cabinets. Right next to Lily's sketch of a squirrel. Yes, all very impressive.

You know, if they'd had that essay contest when Molly was a third year, she no doubt would have won it, too. And that was without her grandparents being Muggles. It should qualify as cheating in some way to have that unfair advantage.

She turned scathingly from the essay only to shake herself and feel slightly ridiculous for being jealous of Rose's silly essay. Molly was seventeen, after all, top of her class in nearly all the many N.E.W.T. classes she was taking. Rose, she reminded herself, had yet to prove what kind of student she would be once classes actually started to matter. And anyway, she ought to be glad that at least one of her cousins wasn't a complete imbecile.

But still… Molly was supposed to be the smart one.

Molly and Hugo – Honor

Hugo's ears were ringing. There were a lot of things he had wished to unhear in the past decade he'd worked at the ministry (admittedly sixty per cent of those things were interns debating the 'hotness' of his father and uncle), but nothing had knocked him so off-kilter as the brief exchange he'd just had to listen to.

"You know that ginger chick in International Magical Cooperation?"

"Yeah, the prudy Weasley, right?"

"She's not so prudy now she's signed her divorce papers," and he'd sniggered. The obnoxious brute of a man Hugo thought he recognized from Magical Games and Sports was actually sniggering.

"No," his friend said incredulously.

"Yep. Her nickers were off after two Firewhiskeys. Silky blue ones, too. I'd wager she likes to play."

"I'll have to get in line."

They'd walked out of the bathroom laughing, completely unaware of Hugo standing frozen with his hand on the stall lock. He had never felt the desire to punch someone in the jaw more fervently. If only he had any idea how to punch someone in the jaw.

Slowly, he came out of the stall and ran his hands under the tap, scowling at the sinks those disgusting Neanderthals had been using. Indignation filled him so completely, it seemed to be bogging down his brain. He was sure James or Lily or even Rose could think of a dozen ways to deliver some satisfying retribution, but the last thing Molly needed right now was more people baring witness to her life's unspooling. He would think of some way to shut them up himself, and it would be better than a sound fist to the jaw.

Molly and James – Innocence

It probably happened gradually, but Molly noticed it very suddenly. She turned around one Christmas, and found a near-stranger in the cocoon of familiarity that seemed eternal within the Burrow's walls. They had bumped into one another going through the kitchen doorway, James's elbow jostling the bowl of stew in her hands and making the contents slosh dangerously.

"Sorry," he'd said. No snide comment. It wasn't even a grudging, grunted apology, but a neutral, even genuine one. So caught off guard was she that she swiveled on her heel to watch him join his father and Teddy in the far corner of the room. He didn't smack his brother although Al was conveniently on the way. He didn't insert himself between Fred and the new girlfriend he had draped over his lap. He didn't crack a loud joke about the oddly-shaped hat Louis's fiancé had knitted for him. He didn't do anything she would characterize as James-like.

And no one seemed to know exactly what the matter was.

"He's just like that," Lucy said with a shrug. "I guess he's finally grown up."

But there was something more gone than immaturity. The absence of his loud, side-aching laughter pressed loudly in her ears for the rest of the Holiday. Molly kept glancing at him as she ate and chatted with the aunts and cooed over the babies, wondering what had shattered his innocence, and surprising herself by wishing it hadn't.

Molly and Al – Guess

"Um, wow, Mol, thanks. You didn't have to get me anything, though."

"Don't be ridiculous," Molly said primly, waving the brightly wrapped box under his nose. "Seventeen is an important year."

"I don't even think James got me anything."

"James is a thoughtless git," Molly said unabashedly.

Al opened his mouth to defend his brother, but there wasn't much to argue there.

"Go on, open it," Molly prompted, leaning forward eagerly.

Exchanging a glance with Rose, perched on the arm of his chair, Al pealed back the shiny paper. As he'd suspected from the heft of the package, it was a thick, shiny book with the title scrawled in gold script: The Modern Quaffle: Breaking into Professional Quidditch Today.

"Er, thanks, Molly. It's… wow, it's really great." Al flashed her a smile, elbowing Rose in the ribs to stop her breaking out into guffaws.

Molly beamed. "I know your mum's got all kinds of connections, but according to my friends in Magical Games and Sports, things are much different now than they were twenty years ago, especially after the administrative wipe-down a few years ago. And it can never hurt to be prepared."

"Of course," Rose managed to say gravely.

"Well, I hope it's useful to you, anyway. Happy birthday, Albus." And looking quite satisfied with herself, Molly swept off into the kitchen.

"You playing professional Quidditch?" Rose snickered as soon as the tail of her cloak disappeared around the door.

"I'm not even that good," Al whispered back in utter bemusement.

"Must've been her best guess," Rose shrugged, plucking the book from his hands and turning it over. "Now you've got a nice paperweight, at least."

Molly and Lily - Blue

The baby curled delicate pink fingers around Molly's thumb, a beautiful little girl with a wisp of red curls and bright hazel eyes.

"Cerulean?" Molly asked, stretching to wrap her tongue around the name.

Lily nodded proudly, curled up like a cat on her overstuffed sofa. "Like the deepest, clearest sky you've ever seen."

"It's pretty," Molly murmured diplomatically, although personally she thought Lily had inhaled a few too many paint fumes.

"We wanted her to see the joy and beauty in something that most people label sad and gloomy," Lily explained, taking the baby back into her arms as she started to fuss and pulling up her shirt for Cerulean's rooting lips.

The way Lily said 'we', talking about her husband as if they were living, breathing extensions of each other, seared against Molly's open wounds of divorce. She tried to be happy that her off-beat cousin had managed to spin such a happy cocoon around herself that she could talk about turning sorrow into joy, but thinking of her empty London flat and her own sons off in the country with their father made the sweetness of Lily's colorful, bustling life only sickening.

She had never been able to see how things could be sad and joyful at the same time. Sadness was just ugly and miserable. She ought to know.