Chapter Text
The night when the Dark Lord fell the Weasley family was sleeping fitfully. The evening held a handful of Halloween celebrations, with too many children breaking havoc, for once not only under Molly’s watch at the Burrow, but also outside, trick or treating around town. The new tradition was still fairly new, as Arthur had gotten a hold of what it entailed only two years prior. The children had run amok to their neighbours grounds, and after a filling dinner they fell asleep without being asked twice, even in the case of the twins, who seemed to have enjoyed their first Halloween out of the house.
Ron was oddly quiet throughout the night, which any other day would have had Molly and Arthur on edge, but after that eventful day it just seemed like a blessing. The hours passed by, the sun rising and, whilst the whole wizarding world was in a widespread commotion, Molly and Arthur slept in.
It wasn’t until a short, sturdy and heavily freckled little boy came to poke his mom’s eye that they woke up to the only news that could be more puzzling than the demise of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.
Charlie Wasley had been woken up by his brother, Bill, and while the older child had promptly fallen back asleep after attempting to read Runes and Rules for what felt like the millionth time to Charlie, the younger of the two had gotten out of their shared bedroom to explore the surroundings of the Burrow in his never ending quest to find a dragon.
When Charlie got to the gardens, he was quickly growing tired, and he was starting to notice that the garden’s serpents must have been just as asleep as his family. His stomach was starting to protest for him to get breakfast when he felt something against his ankle, and when he looked down he found nothing less than a viper.
Now, any other child would have gotten out of there as fast as his legs would let him, but Charlie Weasley was no ordinary child, and thus he decided to follow it towards the forest.
Suddenly, there was a rush of leaves and a small squeaking noise. Charlie felt rooted to the ground all of a sudden, as if a feeling was cautioning him to take one step ahead to change his life forever. The squeaking noises grew into whines, and he started moving again, his choice already made, for he never said no to a new adventure.
What he saw in the forest glade he found himself in was far from what he expected, as there was no dragon cub there, but a human child around Ron’s age sitting on the ground, surrounded by two adder snakes that doubled his size.
Charlie didn’t know what to do, a feeling in his gut telling him to jump and help; but his mind knew his limits, and even though he held no regard to safety, in that moment his young mind was aiming for his own self-preservation. He immediately ran back home, his mother the only thought in his mind. She always had all the answers to his questions, and he knew better than to go to anyone else.
That is how the short, sturdy and heavily freckled little boy came to poke his mom’s eye, waking her up with a startled gasp. She would have been mad, and was ready to be very much so, but the moment she saw the tears rushing down her son’s nervous face all her anger went away, changed by a drive to right whatever had wronged her little boy.
“Mum… There was a kid, the forest, he- he was like Ron! And there were snakes! You have to help him! Mum please!” He started to say, rushedly, waking Arthur too.
“Honey, breathe in, breathe out, please.” She urged him, resting her hands on his arms and caressing him.
“Mum, please, you have to go!” He grew even more anxious, but he wasn’t shaking her off so Molly persisted.
“And where is that, love?” She asked, the calmness of her voice completely artificial.
“The… The place with no trees, the one that’s close to home. Mom, please hurry!”
“I’ll take care of it, Molly.” Her husband stated, wand in hand, not even out of his pyjamas, and right at the next second his grave expression disappeared with the rest of him. And that look on his face… That look on his face speared Molly’s mind, and that is when it hit her.
That is when it hit her that Voldemort killed not only with people, but also with snakes.
Her eyes widened in terrible understanding, and her hands trembled, hard, faltering from her child’s arms. Charlie grew anxious and confused, not understanding his mother’s reaction. She stood up and, albeit shakily, took her wand from her nightstand, doing a couple of tries until her Expecto Patronus came out as a corporeal bear, to which she spoke: “Diggory, come to the Burrow as fast you can. Bring Pandora, too, if you’re able.” Her voice was commanding as it was terrified.
She closed her eyes before lowering herself down again towards her son, hugging him. “Do be good while I’m away, Charles.” That tensed him up, she never used his whole name, not even when he burnt down her favourite casseroles when playing dragons.
“Mum, let me go too!” He pleaded.
“Baby, you stay here and greet Mr. Diggory and Mrs. Lovegood, yes?” She asked as she pulled back and looked him in the eyes.
“Yes mummy.” He nodded, trying to look brave, and she couldn’t help it, and pecked him all over his scrunched little face.
“That’s my good boy.” She told him, pecking his cheek again. “Give your siblings a good morning kiss meanwhile, ok? For me and Daddy?”
“I will, mommy.”
She took off, knowing the spot Charlie talked about by heart, remembering that there was Arthur gave her their first kiss as parents, when they had just moved into the Burrow, and when she materialised there she tried to hold on to her hope of being able to repeat that in the future with Arthur still alive, in her arms.
At that level of stress, the picture that greeted her in the clearing was most surprising. Her husband stood a couple of steps away from her, so still that one could swear that he had been jinxed, but it was far from that, as he was very much able to move, visible in the way he was gaping like a fish. She studied his profile for half a second, and then followed his gaze to find the strangest picture.
A child, sitting by himself, with two serpents double his side on each hand.
Molly’s silent scream was shut by her own hand, and when she was about to speak to Arthur, to ask him whether they should call the aurors of Dumbledore first, she saw a shock of bright red hair in front of the right viper the baby was holding.
“Hello, little one”, and although her husband was giving Molly his back, the smile on his face could be heard on his voice, “how about we head home, hm?” He asked, and the baby, to Molly’s further surprise, seemed to consider it, with his little face scrunched up.
A minute passed when the baby looked calm again, and then a beat, and a hissing sound. A hissing that was coming from the baby. The baby that suddenly Arthur was holding up, thankfully serpentless, but communicating in their language nonetheless.
When he turned around Molly saw Arthur’s face at least, beaming at her direction, and his expression brightened even further when he registered her to be there with him.
“So, I know you said no to more children…” And Molly tuned him out, flabbergasted not beginning to cover how she was feeling at the moment.
“Arthur.” She cut his babbling, pale and feeling as feeble as a cloud. “That baby was holding two snakes not a second ago.”
“Mollywobbles, can’t you see he’s a gift from Magic herself?” His wife’s answering frown decidedly told him that no, she did not believe that.
“A gift for what? Already having more children than most magical families?”
“Molly, you know that this works in mysterious ways.” He explained to her while cooing at the brown haired baby, who answered with a nonsensical hiss. Molly could feel a migraine coming only because of that interaction.
“Arthur, that must be somebody else’s baby.” She reasoned, looking at the babe’s dark hair and eyes.
“Ours, it is. Look at him snuggling up, he knows I’m right.” She was mortified at how easily the baby was wrapping her husband around his little finger, and how it was working a little bit on her too. Their interaction was, admittedly, adorable.
“We get him back home, send a patronus to the necessary people and we’ll see, alright?” She compromised, not believing herself in her tameness.
“Alrighty then, honey.” He told her, with a tone that conveyed how sure he was of him getting his way.
When they got back home, toddler in tow, both Amos Diggory and Pandora Lovegood stood up fast as lighting, ready to tell them the story of a child with a mark with such a shape.