It has been going on for too long now, every single guy she has ever been out with has broken her heart. It has been glued together so many times that the original shape was lost many years ago. They say that at our age, we cannot fully know what love is or what we want, maybe so. But she wears her heart on her sleeve, and the knife has been driven into it too many times. It once beat with a pure innocence and the fairytale dreams of her finding a handsome prince and living happily ever after was forefront in her mind.
And then came along the first handsome prince, devilishly handsome and charming to boot, but a womaniser, a heartless fraud. A guy who has no respect for the women he dates, to him they are a prize, a conquest. Not women at all. They are just a being he can wear upon his sleeve and claim as his own, to show what he has managed to pull. He saw her kindness, intelligence and beauty and picked her, she was helpless against his charms.
Then they began to date, he wore her on his arm like a rare bracelet. I once heard him boast of her devotion to him, and he to her. How they would do whatever the other would ask at the drop of a hate, my stomach plunged at the mere thought of her running after him like a well trained dog, for that was the relationship. The school gossips always said that she seemed radiant and delighted with the pairing and that they were the perfect, adorable couple.
Well I’m not sure who they were looking at, but it certainly wasn’t the Molly Prewett that I know and love.
I saw a heartsick young woman, stumbling after her master with glossy eyes and promises on her lips. I saw the heartbreak in her eyes when she spotted him flirting with the other girls, yet she put on the brave face that she adopts to many times, and her love for him manages to overlook it entirely. She stayed unquestionably devoted to him and everything that he said or did. She kept the bouncy airs and the radiant smile, but it was all to please him.
When she was back in the Gryffindor common room, late at night checking over his homework he had asked her to look at, I saw the pain and the reality of the first of many terrible relationships. I saw the empty glazed look and the bags beneath her eyes, and the glares she sent at the girls he had flirted with. But she never raised her voice or suspicions, something she had never had qualms about before.
Because she was absolutely besotted with him, and to see it broke my heart.
I was a quiet companion to her those days. She would never tell me exactly what was wrong, yet again I generally understood anyway. In fact at times, I knew more than she about the problems that plagued her relationship. But, the fool I was never mentioned any suspicions in my bid to save her feelings. Because she was the dearest thing in the world to me, since fifth year I have seen her as more than a friend. But like the cheating ways of her first boyfriend, I was overlooked.
Then there came the time when I wished I had said something earlier. She walked in on him and one of his many secret admirers getting a little too intimate in the library, that not even the blindly devoted Molly Prewett could overlook it. They said that she pelted books at the both of them until the floor could not be seen for ripped pieces of parchment. I think it was purely juicy gossip led astray, because the heartbroken Molly that stumbled into the common room looked incapable of lifting her arms, let alone a heavy book to throw.
I stayed with her that entire night, few words ever spoken. Many people often wondered what Molly ever saw in me, I was widely regarded as a bit of an oddball who wasn’t worth much bothering with. No one ever bothered me as such, but I had few friends besides Molly who I had taken a shine to in the early stages of Hogwarts. I wouldn’t see her much in lessons because of all of the other friends she had constantly surrounding her and giggling at my quaint, eccentric ways. But we had maintained a steady friendship throughout the years, and whilst I wanted to take it further later on, I had never dared because she never did show such inclination. I was willing to remain a steady friend and hold her hand when the floor crumbled beneath her feet, so I could pull her back to the confident Molly that I love so dearly.
That night was the first of many following temptations, but I would never take advantage of her. The urge to pull her close to me and whisper sweet words of comfort into her ear until the tears stopped trickling was difficult to resist. But I maintained a respectable distance, despite the aching against my ribcage to make everything better and tell her that she deserved someone who loved her.
Someone like me.
At times I was quite obsessed, and at times an old fashioned romantic. I would dream of moonlit walks and stolen kisses between lessons. I yearned to just hold her close and stand like statues beneath the unblinking stars, content. Fools dreams, a romantic’s dreams, dreams that young girls hold dear in the hope of finding their prince charming. I was not better than Molly with her dreams of a handsome prince; I was just searching for my princess Molly.
But I remained silently overlooked, holding her tightly clenched hand through the night and stroking her hair until she fell asleep before the fire in the early hours in the morning. And that morning she left me again with a swift hug and tearful ‘thank you’.
And the cycle started once again, and again, and again. She would fall head over heels for some charmer, or achiever, or womaniser and she would fall into every trap laid before her. Cheats, liars, advantage takers, thieves and just general bastards, she fell for all of them. And every time, she would come crying back to me and I would spend a long night in the common room trying to console her. And then she would fall for another and I was left in the shade again, overlooked. I did become quite bitter at times, but in the short times that she was happy I would become hopeful for her. Because she obviously doesn’t see me the same way I see her, so I should at least be happy for her when she finds her right guy.
Tonight is going to be another one of those long, tearful nights. She isn’t here yet, but I saw her shoot up to the girls’ dormitory, the knife driven into the heart upon her sleeve once more. How many of my words will heal the gaping wound this night? Because when the common room empties she will creep down to me, because she knows that I will wait for her.
Over a few hours, the inhabitants of the common room slowly start to disperse for bed, only a couple of fifth years remaining by the dying embers of the fire, revising for their OWLS into the dark hours of the morning. It is only then that she creeps down from the dormitories and finds me on the window seat, tucked away into the alcove, waiting patiently to offer a shoulder to cry on.
She crawls into the alcove beside me, there is just about enough room for two seventh years side by side, but only just. I squeeze up into the corner a little more to allow her some room and summon a blanket from one of the comfortable couches and drape it over her. She gives a little sigh and leans her head against my shoulder, tears dampening my jumper. Ignoring the gnawing at my ribcage, I tuck a friendly arm around her quivering form as she sobs.
And that is the way we stay most of the night, her tucked up against me, my shoulder getting wetter and wetter as the hours pass by, both of our eyelids getting heavier with every passing minute. But I am used to the night long vigils and do not doze off. It is long after the two fifth years disappear sleepily up to bed before she says anything.
“What do I keep doing wrong?” she whispers, only audible through our tantalisingly close proximity.
“Nothing,” I reply. “You just have a questionable taste in men, that’s all.”
She smiles a weak, watery smile; I feel it tug at the fibres of my jumper slightly. I give her a comforting squeeze of the shoulders as she adjusts herself a little. She gives a shuddering sigh and settles down a little closer.
“He’s another cheater for my tally. I found him getting tongue tied with that Esmeralda Cutmore, Ravenclaw, sixth year.”
I listen sympathetically as she recounts the encounter and subsequent duel to me with shuddering sobs and a broken heart. I just want to scoop her up and kiss her eyelids dry and go and pulverise the last in the long line of scoundrels who has dared give her grief and raise a wand against her. I tense a little at the thought and she notices.
“Are you not cold?” she asks. “There’s plenty of blanket here for two.”
I politely decline and she returns to her position against my shoulder, her tears not flowing as steadily any more. I settle back down to the corner, relaxed, content in the knowledge that we would probably sit like that until the next wintry daybreak. Then she goes and drops the bombshell.
“Why are there no decent men out there?” she asks with a long sigh, staring across the common room.
I want to scream at her: ‘what about me?!’ I want to rant and rave about how painful it has been to watch her go off with all of those other guys. How I have suffered for two long years as she has been stolen from, cheated on, lied to, lied about and generally having her heart broken. I wanted to tell her that the long nights before the fire or at the window were in the way the worst nights of my life, for her pain, yet the best nights of my life, because I got to hold her close and dry her eyes. I wanted to tell her how when I was feeling down, she was the thought I held in my mind before I fell asleep and she was frequently the first thought in the morning. I wanted to point out to her how I had stood by her unwavering through the entirety of her Hogwarts life, and had only ever received a thank you in return. I wanted her to know that I would treat her with every ounce of respect and love that she deserved and more. I wanted to scream at her that I was a decent bloke and she had been wasting her time with all of the other guys. I wanted to vent my frustration with being overlooked time after time.
“They’re out there,” I managed to say with a gritted teeth smile. “They’re just pretty elusive and understated.”
We remain silent for the rest of the night, Molly’s tears slowly abating throughout and she even doses for a while. I sit and stare out of the window, my anger disappearing without a trace, only a hollow emptiness in the pit of my stomach in regret of not saying everything that I wanted. I couldn’t believe that after so long she still saw me as a friend, what was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I just get other it and accept the fact? I watched the stars blinking away against the night skies, and couldn’t help but contemplate the fact that the light still shines despite the fact that the source has long since died. Perhaps I was clinging onto hope alike the light of a star. I eventually fall asleep, my forehead resting against the cold glass of the window. Molly the last thought in my mind before my eyes close, once again.
I awake bleary eyed as Molly stirs next to me, pulling on my numb arm that is still draped about her shoulders. A piercing light manages to creep through the glass and shoot straight into my retina. I clamp my eyes tightly shut and turn away from the window, groaning slightly and trying to stretch my cramped, gangly limbs. Molly clambers out of the alcove and shrugs off the blanket into a nearby couch. Nobody has venture down from their dormitory yet on such a cold, wintery morning.
I clamber out afterwards, stretching my fingers towards the ceiling as I straighten my form after the cramped confines, a shuddering yawn escaping. I send a meek grin at Molly, she looks a little happier at last.
Before she leaves for the dormitory she hugs me tight. Some of the tension in my aching limbs ceases as I return the hug, resting my chin on the top of her head. She smiles at me as she pulls away, says the usual heartfelt ‘thank you’, goes on her tiptoes and gives me a friendly kiss on the cheek.
Yet something in my frustrated mind takes other and as she retreats a little, I manage to grab hold of one of her hands as it leaves my chest. I drop my head and kiss her gently upon her lips, lingering there in the sweetness of the moment, a huge weight falling off of my shoulders in that one moment of triumph. I smile as she responds somewhat tentatively.
I know in that moment, that Arthur Weasley will never be overlooked again.
When I slowly pull away her eyes meet mine in a long searching look, not a word needed between us once more. Her hand is still in mine as she searches my facial expression, I feel as though she is looking straight into my soul. I meet her eyes confidently and know that her eyes are a window in their own right, straight to the kind Molly Prewett that I love, the girl who has always worn her heart on her sleeve and had the knife plunged into it repeatedly. I know in that moment that everything is going to change for the better.