Archive of Our Own

“It is kind of a shame we’re missing the Yule Ball, though.”

“It is just a dance, Rony.”

Rony, who was tucked up in the armchair with knees to chest, had a mug of hot chocolate in her hands while she rocked lightly to the sound of Christmas songs coming from the wireless. The R on the newest hand-made sweater her mother had gifted her peeked from behind her knees.

Snow fell heavily outside the Burrow. The pond had long frozen over, and the gnomes had closed shop for the winter. The Weasley home was painted in a way Harry had never seen before: white as far as the eye could see. Yet, inside their house, the magical hearth kept everybody warm and comfy.

“Yeah, who wants to attend a once-in-a-lifetime event, am I right? Not us, right?” Rony said.

“I’m alright,” said Harry, himself enjoying a hot chocolate. He was still quite sleepy, so comfortable did the warmth and his own Molly Weasley (H for Harry) make him feel. 

“Of course you are,” Rony said sarcastically. “Everything alright over there, Ginny? Need a hand?”

Ginny stood on her tiptoes in front of a massive pine tree fixed at the corner of the living room. Glittering balls and silvery ornaments dangled from its branches while she tried to cover every green surface spot left. Harry tried not to stare too much at her exposed thighs — she chose to wear one of her small jeans shorts even in the chilly weather.

“I’m almoooost—finished!” The young redhead said, stretching to place the golden star at the top of the tree. She turned to them and wiped imaginary sweat from her forehead. “Thanks for all the help, sis.”

“Anytime,” Rony said and sipped loudly from her cup.

“So what do you think, Harry?” Ginny turned to him.

“Lovely.”

Ginny beamed at him. It was a long-standing Weasley tradition for Ginny to do the Christmas decorations. Before Ginny, it was Mr. Weasley who did them, with Mrs. Weasley always busy with the kitchen, but after the girl got old enough, she started helping out. It became apparent she had better taste than her father, with his many Muggle trinkets he smuggled from his office and swore were Christmas decorations.

As if on cue, Mrs. Weasley barged into the living room, eyes sweeping over the environment. 

“Ginny, are you done? Good, come help me peel the potatoes. You too, Rony, come on.”

“Whaat? Mom! Just do it with magic!” Ginny complained. 

“Yeah, Mom, you don't need us,” Rony agreed with her sister. 

“I am busy cooking the rest of the food; I can't look at everything. Now come on, chop chop.”

“What about Harry?” Rony said as a last attempt to escape from the chore. 

Mrs. Weasley set her gaze on him, and even she seemed to think it a bit unfair to put her daughters to work while he relaxed by himself; she said:

“Harry dear, could you take these old books to Fred and George's room?” She pointed at the pile resting near the back of the room. “I asked Arthur, but he's been so busy lately. I don't think he'll arrive before dinner tonight.”

According to Rony, Mrs. Weasley had finally fulfilled her old wish of replacing the crystal cabinet in the living room with a new one with a glass front. The old cabinet had become more of a trinket safe box, its initial purpose never really accomplished. Mrs. Weasley had sworn it would be different with the new one. 

“Of course, Mrs. Weasley, no problem,” Harry said, putting his cup aside and rising to his feet. 

Rony groaned, admitting defeat, and did the same. She and her sister followed Mrs. Weasley to the kitchen with heavy steps, while Harry picked up the pile of books and made for the stairs. 

Fred and George were standing in front of each other, serious looks on their faces. Fred had something in his hand that Harry couldn't see. Ignoring them for a second, Harry put the books down next to Fred's bed, together with the pile of old stuff already deposited there. As big as the Weasley house was, their equally big family ensured there was little space to keep things lying around. The twins surely weren't happy with their mother using the bedroom as her warehouse. 

“What are you two doing?”

“Just a moment, Harry,” said George. “Ready, brother?”

“As I'll ever be, brother,” said Fred. 

The two nodded simultaneously, then a click came from the object in Fred’s hand as he pressed his thumb against it. Harry observed this strange exchange with curiosity, watching Fred blink twice and survey his surroundings as if he had just arrived. 

“So?” said George, impatiently. 

Fred opened a huge grin. “Worked perfectly this time.”

George smiled as well. “I told you so.”

“Indeed. You are as smart as you are handsome, brother.”

“Now, now, you're being too kind,” George said, shaking his head with fake humility. “How long did you stay?”

“Only a couple of hours. It’s not like there’s a lot to do. Our house is dreadfully boring.”

“We should try to extend the field.”

“Maybe in a second version. Together with a price hike.”

“Well said.”

Finally, they turned to Harry.

“Hello there, Harry.”

“Anything we can help with?”

“Not anymore…” Harry said, eyeing the books at the foot of the bed. “What’s that anyway?”

“This?” Fred said, showing Harry what was in his grasp. It was a pocket watch, from the looks of it. “This, my friend, is our newest invention, which also happens to be the greatest.”

“You are looking, Harry, at the Weasley’s Fake-Time Strategy,” George said pompously, pausing for effect. “For when you need those extra minutes on your feet to come up with a good comeback.”

“What does it do?” Harry asked.

“It gives you time,” Fred said.

“More specifically, it will send you into a fake… world.”

“World is an apt name, brother.”

“...into a fake world where time is frozen. For as long as you want. You’ll have all the time in the world to plan your next actions.”

That sounded… like really advanced magic. Harry didn’t really know the limits of magic; he knew some things weren’t possible, like creating food from nothing, and he couldn’t remember any use of magic that dealt with time. Except, of course, the time-turner the year before, but even then, it had sounded like a very special and rare object. But then again, the way their tent at the World Cup extended inside had been pretty impressive, so maybe these kinds of magic weren’t that rare.

“As long as you want?”

“The moment you came in?” Fred said. “I just spent two hours by myself, then came back to the same second I pushed the little button here.”

Harry got closer and examined the little device in Fred’s hand. It looked like a pocket-watch, yes, but instead of hands and numbers, it displayed six zeroes, one next to the other.

“You just need to turn this little fella here—” Fred turned a small handle at the side of the clock, and the rightmost zero rolled down to display a one, then a two, “—to choose how many hours you want to stay in the fake-time zone. Neat, isn’t it?”

“These are for hours?” Harry asked. “Can’t it be minutes?”

Fred and George shared a look. 

“We haven’t figured out how to count under hours yet,” said Fred. “Don’t tell our future customers, but we made this one by accident.”

“We were trying to charm a timer to count the time wrong,” said George. “As a joke.”

“And you can potentially do anything inside?” Harry asked. Wherever inside was.

“Sort of,” said Fred. “Whatever you do inside doesn’t come back with you. That’s why we aptly named it fake-time, Harry.”

“How do you know it’s even real in the first place?” he asked. 

“That’s the thing, it’s not. What goes there is not really real.”

He arched an eyebrow. “That’s confusing.”

“Oh, you two finished it?” Ginny’s voice came from behind them. She walked into their bedroom hurriedly, closing the door behind her.

“Shouldn’t you be helping Mom?”

“Sis has it covered,” Ginny said dismissively. “So, is the clock ready?”

“It’s not a clock,” George said with a sour face. “And no, it’s not done.”

“You sounded like it was.”

“There are a few… side-effects we haven’t managed to fix yet,” said Fred.

“Nothing dangerous,” said George.

“Okay then. Can I try it?” Ginny said. She didn’t wait for a response before snatching it from her brother’s hand.

“Hey, be careful with it!”

“You don’t want to damage it, sister.”

“Calm down, alright? I’m not gonna break your toy,” Ginny said, playing with the watch. She turned the handle two times, setting two hours on the counter. She turned to Harry. “D’you want to try it too?”

“Does it work on more than one person?”

“Works on whoever’s touching it,” Fred explained.

“Alright,” said Harry, stepping closer to Ginny. She extended the hand holding the Weasley’s Fake-Time Strategy to him, and Harry grabbed its sides with his fingers. “Have you done this before?”

“Once. Don’t worry, it’s not dangerous,” Ginny replied. “Ready?”

Harry nodded, fighting the feeling of uncertainty. It probably was not dangerous if Fred and George were willing to let their little sister play with it. Ginny pressed the button at the top of the little device, and it was like a wave erupted from it. It passed through Harry, blurring his vision for a moment and leaving goosebumps in his skin. It went as quickly as it came, and Harry found himself standing at the same spot with Ginny holding the other end of the stopwatch.

He looked around himself. They were still in the twins’ room, not a thing out of place. Except the twins themselves were gone.

“Where are we?” Harry asked.

“Home… I think,” Ginny said. She let go of the device and sat down on George’s bed. “Just not the same place. The idiots never explained it correctly. I don’t think they even know it themselves.”

“Is the time really stopped here?” Harry asked. Outside the window, the snow still fell lightly.

“I guess. I didn’t stay for long,” said Ginny, swinging her feet off the edge of the bed. “But I know no one is gonna barge into us here.”

“What do you mean?”

“No one can come in here, apparently, and there’s no other entrance. You get in and out with the clock. That’s what they said.”

“Really?” Harry turned the silvery device on his hand. “What if we break it?”

“I don’t think you can. But the twins said not to try it, or we might get stuck here. Forever.”

A chill went down Harry’s spine. So much for ‘not dangerous’. Carefully, he placed the fake-time clock on the bedside table.

“So, we have two hours inside until we leave?” Harry said, gazing down at her exposed thighs. 

“...completely alone,” said Ginny, biting her lip and staring back at him with lustful eyes.

He stepped in closer to the bed. Of course, she had planned it all the moment she saw the device working. She invited him along just for that. Harry hadn’t expected any activity over the holidays while he was at the Weasleys’, not with almost the whole family there, but it seemed life still had a few bones to throw his way.

He bent down and captured Ginny’s lips in a kiss, pushing his tongue inside her mouth aggressively. Her hand found his crotch, squeezing and massaging him through the fabric of his pajamas. Her fingers slipped beneath the waistband, her touch warm and direct against his skin. Harry broke the kiss, straightening himself up, and pushed his pants down. His cock sprang free, though already in Ginny’s grasp. She stroked him steadily, her hand coaxing beads of precum to gather at the tip.

She licked her lips, her eyes locked on his. Slowly, she bent forward, her tongue flicking against the head of his cock, collecting the precum that had gathered there. With a teasing press of her thumb along his length, she coaxed out more, her mouth eagerly capturing every drop. He set a hand on her head, gently pushing it down, encouraging the girl to take more inside. She obeyed like a good girl, devouring his cock slowly — first the head, which she wrapped in her velvety lips, then further down. Her tongue immediately began to massage the spongy flesh.

“You’ve gotten so good at this,” Harry murmured, his voice thick with lust as he gently guided her head lower. His fingers tangled in her hair, not forcing, but encouraging her to take him deeper. The way she looked up at him, her eyes half-lidded and filled with hunger, sent a shiver down his spine.

She moaned in response and continued her work. Her fingers found his sack and played with his balls. Quickly, Harry felt the urge to cum, but it was too soon to finish their fun. He pulled her off his cock before he exploded inside her mouth.

“Wanna take these off?” Harry tugged at her red Weasley sweater.

Ginny let go of him and pulled it off, exposing her small, freckled tits and their pink areolas, already stiff from arousal. She had gone through some growing during the year, and the breasts stood slightly bigger, proudly perky, but she was still the smallest of his girls, Hermione included. It didn’t matter; her young body was equally arousing to Harry.

Her fingers fumbled with the buttons of her shorts, her hips lifting slightly as she slid them down, taking her panties with them in one fluid motion.

“Turn around,” he commanded.

The girl got off the bed. She did as he instructed, turning around and bending over the mattress, presenting herself to him. Her pussy glistened with juices, and her pink arsehole twitched invitingly. Looking back at him, she smiled lasciviously before wiggling her butt in his direction. He slapped one side of her buttocks, and she yelped, then giggled.

Harry massaged the spot for a moment before moving his hand to the more sensitive parts. With the tip of a finger, he traced the outline of her arsehole. He descended to her pussy, and, just as gently, touched her lips there, spreading her juices around. He inserted a finger, then two, and heard her moan with pleasure. She was so wet and warm inside.

“Harry… please,” Ginny gasped, her voice trembling with need. She arched her back, offering herself to him completely.

“Tell me what you want,” Harry demanded, his voice low and commanding, though his eyes softened with affection.

“I want you… inside me,” she whispered, her cheeks flushing as she met his gaze. “I need to feel you.”

Harry positioned himself at her entrance, the head of his cock brushing against her slick folds. He teased her, tapping lightly against her, each touch drawing a gasp from her lips. Finally, with a slow, deliberate push, he sank into her, her warmth enveloping him completely. With how long they’ve been having sex, her channel had adapted nicely to his size and took him to the base without issues. He groaned low in his throat. She was still deliciously tight. Ginny let out an appreciative sigh and started to buck her hips back and forth, slapping her buttcheeks on his pelvis. The bedroom was filled with the sounds of flesh against flesh and the echoes of the girl’s moans.

“Aaaa… yes, yes, fuck me, Harry, don’t stop… my cunt is yours… aaaaa fuck your bitch… I’m your… aaa… whore…”

Harry chuckled, low and dark, as her words spilled out, each one filthier than the last. It was a side of her he’d come to crave — the way she reveled in the rawness of it, her voice trembling as she called herself his ‘whore,’ his ‘bitch,’ his everything. He grabbed her hair, twisting it until it became a ponytail in his grasp, and pulled it towards him.

“You’re such a slut… hmm… You can’t go one holiday without a cock in your pussy…”

Ginny slapped herself on his penis with even more enthusiasm.

“Yeees, I’m a slut who… aaaa… wants her boyfriend’s cum all the time…”

Harry felt the pressure building, his release coiled tight. “Do you want it?” he growled, his voice rough with need.

“Uhuuum… please…”

With one hand, he pulled her hair with strength, and with the other, he grabbed her slim hip and pulled her toward himself like he’d do a fuck doll. He fucked himself using her pussy for a few more minutes, holding back his orgasm to enjoy her as much as possible, but the need won out eventually. Normally, he’d warn his lovers when he’d cum, but Ginny enjoyed being dominated like that; she liked it when he took his pleasure without sparing her a thought. He came inside her, cock pulsing in her warm channel.

He threw her onto the bed and fell beside her, enjoying the relaxing sensation.

Over an hour later, naked and lying on his back, Harry stared at the ceiling of the twins’ bedroom. He had taken Ginny two more times, but now spent, there was little to do except wait for the magic time of the clock to run out. The girl herself was sitting down at the foot of the bed. She had grabbed one of the old albums Harry brought from downstairs and was flipping through it.

“These are soo old. These must have been taken, like, twenty years ago.”

“What is it?” Harry asked with little interest.

“Old Christmas photos, mostly,” Ginny replied. “Goes back a long time. Hmn, we used to celebrate Christmas with Mom’s side of the family? I didn’t remember that.”

Boredom and curiosity got the best of him, and Harry dragged his body over to the edge of the mattress to peek at the album over Ginny’s shoulder. Pictures of the Weasley family were glued across the pages, and, much like in the album of his parents, they were all moving. In some of them, younger Mr. and Mrs. Weasley posed with their kids: Bill and Charlie as teenagers, Percy younger than he was now, and the twins, Rony and Ginny, just children. Harry smiled, seeing little Rony grinning to the camera, a few teeth missing in her mouth. Older pictures appeared not to have been taken in Burrow, but in a house Harry didn’t know, with other people Harry didn’t recognize. He assumed them to be members of Mrs. Weasley’s family, like Ginny mentioned.

The girl flipped through the pages, traveling back in time. He saw baby Ginny in her mother’s arms, with a very small Rony in her father’s arms beside them. Then it was baby Rony’s turn, followed by a pair of baby twins. One by one, the family members got younger and disappeared from the next photos until only the two adults remained, posing with other members of their respective families, all redheads.

As time flowed backward, Harry noticed Mrs. Weasley growing younger, thinner, and prettier. By what he guessed was her twentieth year, she had become a beautiful, curvaceous woman with vibrant red curls and an inviting smile.

No wonder Mr. Weasley made so many children with her, Harry thought.

“That’s the end,” Ginny said when she reached the first page, which showed a few pictures of her newlywed parents at the Burrow.

“Or the start,” Harry quipped. She sniggered.

“Okay, nice trip down memory lane, but I think our time is running out.” Ginny picked up the stopwatch. From two hours, it now marked one. There was no way to know how much time they actually had left.

“We should get dressed then.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Ginny said. “We’ll go back to the exact moment I pressed the button.”

“Dressed?” Harry asked, creasing his brow. Impressive magic.

“Exactly like we were,” Ginny said. She threw the album aside and climbed onto the bed with him.  “We still have a few minutes…”

Harry turned on his back, exposing his crotch to the girl. She touched his soft cock, giving it a few jerks, then bent down to lick on the shaft. She opened her mouth, and just when she was about to put it in her mouth, the same sensation as when they activated the clock overcame Harry. The next moment, he was on his feet, facing Ginny again, fingers on the silver stopwatch.

“Wow!” 

The room spun for a second; he stepped back to stop himself from falling. George stepped forward quickly and laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Easy, Harry,” he said. “Were you lying down? Don’t worry, that’s normal the first time.”

“I…”

Harry felt strange. Not to say that he felt bad, but he felt so different from how he felt just a moment before. All the soreness of his muscles was gone, as well as the feeling of sexual satisfaction. 

“I'm good, thanks for asking,” Ginny said. 

“We are very glad to hear that, dear sister.”

Harry looked around. There was no mess in the bed. The old albums and books were still stacked on top of each other where he had left them. It was as if nothing at all had happened. Ginny herself showed no signs of their activities. Neither did he. 

Fake time, indeed. 

“So when are you going to sell them?” Ginny asked.

“You like it, huh?” George teased. “Unfortunately, we still have to figure out how to make more.”

“But don’t worry, we’ll put you at the top of the customer list,” Fred said.

“Customer? Doesn’t your cute sister deserve one for free?”

George grimaced. “That abominable word again.”

“You’ve been hanging around Rony too much, Ginny, to learn these dirty words.”

“GINNY!”

Mrs. Weasley’s loud voice cut through the room, breaking the twins’ wails. Ginny, who had her mouth open for a retort, turned her head to the door, where her mother stood with hands on her hips and an angry scowl on her face.

“Oops.”

“What are you doing up here while your sister and I are working our wands off to finish this dinner on time?!”

“Why do we have to be the only ones helping?!” Ginny complained. “Look at the twins, they’re just goofing off!” 

“Goofing off?! Rich from someone who was just enjoying our invention.”

“I can help, Mrs. Weasley,” Harry offered, hoping to avoid a bigger argument. He started walking to the door.

“It’s alright, Harry dear, you’re our guest. Unlike my daughter, who lives here!"

Ginny crossed her arms. “I’m not going if Fred and George aren’t.”

“Your brothers will have their share of work later!”

The twins made the wise choice of staying silent at that.

“Ugh, this is so unfair!”

Ginny gave up and threw her hands in the air. She stomped toward the door. Such was her fury that she headed straight for her mother without changing direction, and Mrs. Weasley, who had no desire to get run over by her daughter, stepped to the side awkwardly, bumping instead into Harry. The boy, still a bit dazed by the magic of the Fake-Time clock, lost his balance and toppled backward onto the floor. On reflex, he grabbed Mrs. Weasley’s arm, and the woman, who wasn’t at her best balance at the moment either, fell with a shriek.

Harry felt the blow to his head and back as well as the woman’s weight falling onto him, but there was a weird sensation too, a cold shiver through his body. He groaned and instinctively pushed the weight off him. He scratched his hurting head with one hand and felt around for his glasses with the other. 

“Argh… are you okay, Mrs. Weasley?” he said as his vision was restored. He turned to the woman to gaze at an unbelievable sight.

A young girl lay on the floor, trying to pick herself up. Wavy red locks falling to her shoulders, freckles running across her nose and cheeks, and Mrs. Weasley’s robes loosely falling off her — it could be no one else.

“Mrs. Weasley?”

She sat up, rubbing a red spot on her forehead. 

“Harry dear, are you alright?” she said, worried. Her voice was much smoother, higher, and more feminine than before. “That girl… I’m gonna give her a piece of my mind.”

What was going on? Why was Mrs. Weasley suddenly so young? 

He turned to others, only to notice they were alone in the room. The twins were nowhere to be seen. It dawned on Harry, and he searched around himself. He found the clock a few feet away. A crack ran across the glass, and the button at the top had broken off somewhere. Harry felt his blood run cold. 

He picked it up and rose to his feet. Strangely, the stopwatch was marking zero hours. A tick-tock came from inside. They must have activated it somehow when they fell and were now inside the fake-time world. 

“Where have these boys run off to?” He heard Mrs. Weasley say. She had risen from the ground as well and was now surveying the room, looking for her children. 

“Mrs. Weasley… how are you feeling?” Harry said carefully. Observing her closer now, she appeared to be even younger than she was in the photos he had seen earlier. 

“I'm alright, dear, don't worry about it,” she said, setting her eyes on him. She frowned. “Harry, I didn't notice you were growing a beard.”

“What?”

He touched his face and felt the thin, hoarse layer of hair there. What was going on?

“Mrs. Weasley… I think we have a problem.”

*

“How did this happen?!”

Mrs. Weasley stood in front of the mirror in Ginny and Rony’s room. She inspected herself under the now loose robes. If Harry had to guess, she was now just slightly older than Rony, back into her teenage body, changed by some side-effect of the clock. Harry, too, had changed, though in his case the difference hadn’t been so great. He was taller and somewhat older.

He showed her Fred and George’s device and explained what they were doing when she entered the bedroom. Mrs Weasley took it from his hand, inspecting it close to her eyes.

“This thing, you say?” Harry nodded, and she shook her head, returning the clock to him. “These boys… when did you say this will return us?”

“That’s the problem, Mrs. Weasley, I don’t know. It ran on a timer before, but now...”

The clock was still marking zeroes.

“That’s just what I needed,” she said, sourly. “If the dinner wasn’t late already, it certainly will be now.”

“You don’t have to worry about that; time doesn’t pass outside. When we go back, it will be just as it was when we left. I think.”

“That better be so, or those two are in for it!” Mrs. Weasley said. She turned to the mirror and examined herself again. “I suppose we’ll have to wait for the magic to wear off. I’ll take a nap in my room then, if you don’t mind, dear.”

“Not at all, Mrs. Weasley.”

She touched him on the cheek before turning to leave.

“The beard suits you.”

While Mrs. Weasley slept, Harry explored the fake-time Weasley home. He checked every room to find them the same as in the real Burrow. Interestingly, the food in the kitchen had disappeared, and only its smell lingered slightly in the air. A limitation of the magic, perhaps. 

The idea struck him that there might be a way to leave the fake-time world. Surely, the magic couldn’t stretch to the whole world, so if he went far enough away from the house and the clock, he’d be able to return to the regular time. He tested this theory immediately, going out of the Burrow and traveling as far as he could under the snow. 

In under an hour of walking, he reached a sort of invisible barrier, a solid wall seemingly made of air that could not be crossed. It wouldn’t budge no matter how much force he applied or how long he pushed against it. Beyond, he could see far into the unchanging world, but he could go no farther. He traveled along the wall, finding it to be in the shape of a circle around the Weasley home. The sun began to set, and he returned to the house to avoid the dark.

He found Mrs. Weasley in the kitchen, sitting at the table, arms crossed, and resting her chin on her hand. She looked up when she saw him.

“Where did you go?”

He told her of his exploration.

“We are stuck here then,” she said. “This is just marvelous. I hope that spell doesn’t take much longer.”

“Same here, Mrs. Weasley,” Harry said. He picked up the watch from the counter. It read four hours instead of zero. The timer was going up. Not decreasing, but increasing. With a grunt of frustration, he showed it to Mrs. Weasley.

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he confessed.

She stayed in silence for a moment, then said, “They’ll come looking for us, right?”

“I don’t think they know we’re here,” he replied. “Time is stopped outside.”

She turned the clock in her hands. “This thing is broken, isn’t it? We don’t know if it is working like they said it would.”

“That’s true,” Harry said. For all they knew, the twins could be looking for a way to free them, or the clock itself could spit them out at any moment.

“I knew one of these days their stupid jokes would get us into trouble,” Mrs. Weasley said, shaking her head. “No food, nothing to drink, and I suppose no Christmas!”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Weasley.”

She rested a hand on top of his hand. It was small and soft compared to his. “It’s not your fault, dear.” She put the clock back on the table. “I suppose we’ll just have to wait until the charm wears off, then.”

“Do you think that’ll happen?”

“Oh, don’t worry, they always do. There isn’t a single charm that doesn’t lose power with time, at least not one that those two can cast. We’ll be fine.”

Harry nodded, feeling hopeful. They stayed in silence for a while, and Harry noticed for the first time that he didn’t know what actually to talk about with Mrs. Weasley. That was perhaps the longest conversation they had ever held alone.

The Mrs. Weasley he knew had a kind face, but her age and undeniable chubbiness didn’t make her the prettiest woman around. The young Mrs. Weasley, though, was another story. She was just as beautiful as the woman in the photo albums. He could definitely see her daughters in her: Rony’s intense eyes and Ginny’s freckles and round cheeks. Her orange curls — which her daughters did not inherit — fell delicately over her shoulders. At least he could meet this version of her amidst the trouble with the clock.

“Are you hungry?” Mrs. Weasley spoke suddenly.

“I’m… not,” Harry replied. He really wasn’t, even though it should be late enough already that his stomach would be hurting for food. Yet, nothing. He wasn’t even thirsty.

“I’m not either. Hmm.”

“Must be the magic. Right?”

“At least we won’t need to worry about that,” she said. “I’m sorry, dear, you were looking forward to Christmas dinner, weren’t you?”

He admitted that he was. It would be his first dinner with the Weasley family. One of many, he hoped. 

They couldn’t find a topic to hold a conversation after that, and again Mrs. Weasley excused herself to her bedroom, wishing him a good night and Christmas evening. Harry continued studying the Clock late into the night, and only when he couldn’t fight the sleep off anymore did he go up to the Twins’ bedroom.

The next morning, he came down the stairs and saw Mrs. Weasley outside through the windows of the living room. She was pacing back and forth near the fence, seemingly deep in thought. Harry stopped for a little while to observe her. She was wearing Rony’s clothes, he noticed, one of the few dresses her daughter owned, and a wool jacket. Her arms were crossed below her considerable bosom, and her curls bounced lightly on her shoulders. Wondering if the worry was getting to her, he walked out to meet her. 

“Mrs. Weasley?” he called, descending the small steps of the entrance. 

She turned abruptly, still hugging herself. “Harry? Good morning.”

“G’morning. Can I ask what you’re doing?”

She clicked her tongue then laughed lightly. “Oh, nothing, it’s stupid. I was just being stupid.”

“I doubt that, Mrs. Weasley.”

She sighed. “I was trying to Apparate to London. I’ve been trying the whole morning. Obviously, it doesn’t work.”

“That’s a really good idea,” Harry said, impressed. He hadn’t thought of that, though probably because he couldn’t Apparate. 

“Thank you. I tried the Floo too. Doesn’t work either.”

“It was worth a try. I think we’re just not in the real world. Do you know what I mean?”

“I understand it, dear. How did those boys manage something like this?”

“They told me it was an accident. But honestly, I think they’re brilliant. I’ve seen other things they’ve made, and they’re pretty terrific too.”

A small smile formed on her lips. “They are. I wish they used those minds for something productive instead of these stupid jokes.”

“Some of them are funny.”

“If you’re a kid,” Mrs. Weasley said. “…which I suppose you all are.”

Harry laughed. “C’mon, Mrs. Weasley, do I look like a kid?” He scratched his beard. 

“A kid with a handsome beard is still a kid,” she said with a smirk playing on her lips. “Let’s get inside, I’m freezing.”

They did, and Mrs. Weasley sat down on the couch in front of the fireplace. It lit up with a swish of her wand. 

“Just our luck that it still snows inside this place,” she said sourly, holding her arms to the fire. 

“It’s impressive,” Harry said. “Just like the night and the day.”

The way the world worked confused Harry. He thought, since he didn’t feel hungry or thirsty, he might not feel sleepy, too, but he had been tired enough to fall asleep. 

“Impressive as it is, I’d really like it to end,” Mrs. Weasley said. “Not that I’m saying it's bad to be here with you, dear.”

Harry chuckled. “It’s alright, Mrs. Weasley. I don’t think it’s bad either, but I want to go back too.”

The fire crackled for a while before she spoke up again. 

“What do you plan to do for the day?”

“I want to check out the clock again, try to find a way to send us back quicker. But I don’t want to break it any more than it already is.”

“That’s wise. Merlin knows what could happen if it does.”

“What about you, Mrs. Weasley?”

“Not a lot to do, is there? There are no ingredients in the kitchen, and I can’t even eat if I wanted to. Chickens are gone too.”

“I’m really sorry.”

“It’s NOT your fault. I know exactly whose fault it is, and those two and that girl will get theirs when we’re out.”

Harry couldn’t stop himself from chuckling softly again. The angry, young Mrs. Weasley made for a cute sight. 

“I’ll go back upstairs, then. Call me if you need anything,” he said.

“That’s alright, dear,” she said. “And Harry?” He turned on his way to the stairs. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas, Mrs. Weasley.”

*

And yet, it seemed the mystery of the clock was too much for Harry. Quickly, the number on it turned twenty-four, then thirty, when the night fell again. Mrs. Weasley showed up twice at his door to ask how it was going, then another time to wish him good night. 

Two days passed in that same way, then three, and on the fourth day, even Harry’s resilience couldn’t hold out anymore. He had to admit to himself that without pulling the clock apart, he was unlikely to discover its secret. And there was no guarantee he would if he did. He was forced to put it down for the time being to avoid driving himself mad. 

His initial amusement over the situation had evaporated, and his mood sobered considerably during that time. Pacing around the house or walking could only distract him so much. 

And the same could be said about Mrs. Weasley. 

He found her standing over the little pond in their backyard one afternoon, almost a week after they first entered the fake-time. She had pebbles in her hand, which she threw at the surface of the water, making them bounce. 

“Hi, Mrs. Weasley. I haven't seen you since yesterday morning.”

“Hello, Harry.” She didn’t turn to face him. “I’ve been here, I assure you.”

Harry didn’t reply immediately, but bent down and picked a few pebbles for himself. 

“Do you mind if I join you?”

“No.”

He threw one rock, watched it bounce on the water, and hit the ice on the other side of the pond. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought I’d be able to fix it.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Mrs. Weasley said, throwing one of her own pebbles and bouncing farther than Harry's did. “I didn’t really expect you to. Oh, don’t look at me like that. You haven’t even finished your fourth year, and I know your grades aren’t that much better than Rony’s.”

Harry chuckled, but without much humor. Would better grades have already solved their problem? Would Hermione already be free if it were her trapped there? Probably. 

“So…what now?” he asked. 

“I don’t know,” Mrs. Weasley said sourly. Her pebble flew over the pond to hit the snowy grass on the other side. “Wait for the spell to wear off, I suppose.”

“It’s been a week.” Or close enough. 

She sighed deeply. “Yes, it’s taking unusually long.”

“I think I remember something about incantation length when it came to charms like these. Do you think—“

“I don’t know, Harry!”

He took a step back. Mrs. Weasley turned to him, but the flash of anger in her chocolate eyes melted instantly.

“I’m sorry,” Harry said. 

“No, no… I’m sorry, Harry, I didn’t mean to yell at you. It’s just been… difficult. Please, forgive me, dear.”

“It’s alright, Mrs. Weasley, I shouldn’t be asking all these questions. I’ll leave you alone.”

He turned to walk back inside, but Mrs. Weasley grabbed his arm. She enveloped him in a hug before he could react. 

“I’m sorry. I don’t want to let out my frustration on you.”

Harry returned her hug. Though not as tight as her usual hugs, it was still warm, coming from her small frame. 

“It’s okay, really, Mrs. Weasley.”

She let him go. 

“It’s not okay, but thanks for understanding.”

That evening, they stayed together in the living room until late. They lit the fireplace again and sat next to it on the floor. Mrs. Weasley had turned off all lamps on the ground floor so that only the fire glowed in the dark, casting long shadows on the walls. 

“…then Fawkes pierced the Basilisk's eyes so it couldn’t kill with its gaze anymore,” Harry was saying as he recounted what happened in the Chamber of Secrets in his second year. “But Riddle said it didn’t matter; the Basilisk could still smell me. He ordered it to come after me.”

“Merlin!” Mrs. Weasley cried. 

“So I ran back and forth in the tunnels until I returned to the main chamber. I saw something gleaming inside the Sorting Hat. It was the Sword of Gryffindor. By then, the Basilisk had caught up to me. I picked up the sword, and the Basilisk tried to bite me; the sword ended up piercing his skull through its mouth. Not before it actually punctured my arm with a fang. The fang broke off, and I thought I was going to die, so I drove it into the diary. It started to bleed ink, and Riddle exploded in sparks. Ginny woke up after that, but I don’t remember much else. She told me Fawkes cried on my arm and cured the poison. And that was it.”

Mrs. Weasley, who still had a hand covering her mouth in astonishment, took a moment to speak. “That… was incredible. I never knew the whole story. Rony told me you killed that dreadful snake, but I never thought she was being serious. Are you saying you actually fought it with a sword?”

“Fought it is a strong word, I think, more like lucked out by killing it.”

“That’s more than impressive. And dangerous. Merlin, I’d have gone insane already if I were your mother.”

Harry didn’t reply. There were times when he really wished she were his mother and he could be a real member of her family. But that was something he kept to himself. 

“Thank you again for saving my daughter, Harry. I really don’t know what I would have done if the worst came to pass that night.”

“It was nothing, Mrs. Weasley.”

“Morgana’s boots it was. I guess that was when Ginny really fell in love with you?”

Harry felt the heat reach his cheek. “W-What?”

“Don’t think I haven’t noticed the way she looks at you since you came here with the twins and Rony that night,” Mrs. Weasley said, smirking. Harry, too, could remember her constant blushing and stammering that summer. He thought she was starstruck because of his fame, but it turned out to be something more. “She always felt something for you, that daughter of mine. And I remember after the World Cup. I never asked you, Harry, why did you want to date her?”

He had never told anyone except Rony that he and Ginny had kissed while they ran from the Death Eaters, and only Hermione knew they were sleeping together. He’d like it to keep it that way. 

“S-she’s very pretty, and I like her, and she likes Quidditch too. We have a lot in common.”

Mrs. Weasley was strangely watching him. 

“You know, everything you said just now can be said about my other daughter, too.”

“What?”

“I’m saying Rony is just as good a fit.”

“…are you asking me why I didn’t ask to date her?”

“I’m just wondering. I thought if it were anyone, it’d be her. You don’t think she’s pretty enough?”

“Rony is very pretty,” he hurried to say. “I don’t know, we’re just… friends. Would you prefer it if I had asked for her?”

Mrs. Weasley shook her head. “I’m not saying that. It’s not my place to tell who you should like.”

“Thanks,” Harry said in a low voice. “Mr. Weasley said that he didn’t disapprove of us dating, Ginny and I, but that we were too young.”

“Right you were — you still are.”

“So, is it alright if I ask again to date her… or R-Rony when we are older?”

Mrs. Weasley laid a hand atop his. 

“We would be very happy if you did that, Harry.”

Harry felt the warmth spreading in his chest. On a rational level, he knew the Weasleys thought the world of him, and to hear from Mrs. Weasley that she would gladly welcome him into the family made him happy in a way he wasn’t used to. 

*

It had been days since Harry last looked at the twins’ clock, the device that had gotten them into that situation. It read 723 hours. He tried to make the calculations in his head for a minute, then gave up. He already knew they had been there for a long time. 

He put it away inside a drawer in the twins’ desk and sat down in front of the only window in the bedroom. The snow was starting to give way outside, the sun shining brighter and brighter every day. Soon, the leaves would start to grow again. Would there be birds? He wondered. He hadn't seen a single one or heard them sing since he entered the fake-time world. There might have been none there. 

Harry stayed there for an hour or two, looking outside until he got bored with it. He walked around the house, mainly stretching his legs, staring here and there, doing nothing much.

Mrs. Weasley, like most days, was in her bedroom at the top of the Burrow. That day, she hadn’t bothered to change out of her pajamas or brush her hair, which was still a mess of unruly curls from the night’s sleep. Harry knocked on the door before he entered. 

He sat on the edge of the bed and said, “Rony used to say she wished the Christmas holidays were longer.” He chuckled to himself humorously before continuing. “At least now I can tell her that’s not a good idea.”

“No kidding,” Mrs. Weasley replied. Her voice was rough from sleep.

“When we get out of here, I’m never touching one of their toys again,” he said, still trying to keep up the good humor. 

He heard the blankets rustling — Mrs. Weasley sat up on the bed. 

“If we get out of here,” she said. 

Harry swallowed hard.

“Why—why do you say that?”

“It shouldn’t take this long; no charm takes this long to wear out without the wizard close by,” she said soberly. “Which means, I think, they cursed that clock somehow.”

“Can we break the curse then?” Harry asked, remembering that one of her children worked as a Cursebreaker. 

“I have no idea how,” Mrs. Weasley admitted. 

Harry let his head fall between his knees. So they were trapped in this fake world. Possibly forever. That was just his luck. Harry Potter might be the unluckiest person in the world. 

He asked if there were any books about curses in the house, but Mrs. Weasley’s answer was negative; any magic tomes they had ever bought were later sold to pay for other expenses. 

Time started to lose some of its meaning after that. He checked on the clock less and less as the days went by and tried to occupy himself with whatever he could find. He found out the brooms worked there, so he took to pulling them out of the shed and flying for hours on end. The brooms were old and not nearly as good as his Firebolt, but they were enough to scratch the itch. 

Mrs. Weasley was having a much harder time. Her favorite pastime, cooking, was not possible there because there were no ingredients to be found. Sometimes, she would join him on a broom, but he could see that it was far from being her passion, like it was for many of her kids. 

Often, he would find her sitting on the couch staring at the pictures of her family, or lying down in one of her kids’ bedrooms, sobbing softly. The family clock, which told them the whereabouts or situation of the Weasley family, pointed to a blank space outside of the markers, except for her own. When he found her like this, Harry would quietly slip away to his bedroom. 

**

“Harry, are you there?” 

He did one more push-up, then two, then a last one. He grunted and stopped, pushing himself up to a sitting position, and grabbed a towel nearby to wipe the sweat off his forehead. “I'm here, Mrs. Weasley!”

The door opened, and the redhead came in holding two sweaters. “Look, I got it, what do you think?”

He rose to his feet and took one of the sweaters from her hands. The fabric's wool felt perfectly wool-like. 

“This is perfect,” he marveled. 

Now, many months after they had entered the fake-time world, winter was approaching again, and Mrs. Weasley had taken it upon herself to make wool sweaters for them. The problem was that there was no wool in the house except for the sweaters that already existed, and she didn't want to destroy them. The solution she found was to transform the other clothes into wool and use them as material. 

“Thank you. Transfiguration was not my best subject at school,” she said. Improving her skill was a way to pass the time; it had taken her months to transfigure the first pair of jeans into a jacket. 

He wished he could get better at the magic that would allow them to leave. 

She eyed him up and down and said, How’s the training going?”

“No results, I think. I can't seem to get any stronger or weaker, only exhausted. I thought after a few months, something would change.”

“Well, it's too early to give up,” she said cheerfully.

“And it's not like I'm wasting any time,” he said, and she chuckled.

“Of that, we have lots,” she said. “Come on, come help me separate some old clothes.”

Harry put on a shirt and followed her to her daughters’ bedroom, the room Rony and Ginny shared. She didn't waste any time before rummaging through the wardrobes and throwing seemingly random pieces of clothes over the beds. 

“...this… this one’s still good… this… oh I love this one…”

“What are you doing, Mrs. Weasley?” Harry asked. 

“I'm gonna adjust some of Rony’s clothes for me. I've been using hers, but they're all too large, and I'm tired of pulling on the collar. Be a dear and separate those on the beds by type, please?”

He nodded and started the task, grabbing a shirt to fold. 

“We thought we were lucky when Ginny came after Rony,” Mrs. Weasley continued while she grabbed more clothes, “two girls, the younger one could use her sister's old ones that didn't fit anymore — we had been doing that for all our boys — but Rony… Rony was always so much more developed than Ginny; none of her old clothes ever truly fit Ginny. If it wasn't a sleeve too long, it was a pant leg too long. Around eight, Ginny decided she wanted to wear dresses, did you know? Her sister didn't have a single dress at that age. Arthur, bless his heart, couldn't bear to see our youngest pouting like that and spent our holiday savings on a new wardrobe.”

Harry chuckled; he could imagine a little Ginny begging her father for new clothes. Perhaps she chose dresses just to be different from Rony? He shook his head with a smile, then he noticed he was holding a small piece of underwear in his hands. Rony’s. He felt heat on his cheeks and put it down. Next, it was the matching bra, with two huge cups of rough pink fabric.

“That ought to do it for now,” Mrs. Weasley said, straightening up and stepping away from the wardrobe. She turned to Harry in time to see him holding the bra. “Big, isn't it?”

“W-what?” Harry let the piece fall as if it burned his hand. 

“I said it's big. It won't fit me, sadly; Rony’s are bigger at fourteen than mine ever were,” Mrs.s Weasley said, bending over to pick the bra Harry dropped. He got a great view of her cleavage and bosom — quite big in their own right. “I suppose you prefer them on the smaller side?”

Now Harry was blushing something fierce, and he felt the heat reach his ears. “Do you mean…?”

“Breasts, yes. Ginny’s not quite there yet in that department, but she's the one you wanted to date, wasn't she? Oh, stop, you're redder than Arthur was the first time I held his hand.”

“I-I don't have a preference,” he managed to reply. 

“Please, as if I don't know you men — I've only raised five sons. Fine, fine, I'll stop embarrassing you now. Pick up that bundle, dear, let's get it downstairs.” Harry did so, and they left. 

Some days were just like that. They would find something to occupy their mind, then meet later to talk about it. No staying late in bed, no lingering in the dark corners of the Burrow; it almost felt like a normal routine. Harry came to treasure those days like nothing else. 

And time continued to pass for them. 

**

“...and Aunt Muriel said ‘if you leave through that door, you can consider yourself a Prewett no longer!’, naturally I walked out as fast as I could and never looked back.”

Harry laughed. “Sorry, Mrs. Weasley, but that's mad.”

“Oh, it really was. I didn't even have a place to sleep that night. But she was right in the end, I was no longer a Prewett. Arthur and I married the next day.”

“Did you end up reconciling with her?”

“Aunt Muriel? Oh yes, she came to visit not even a month later. She's all grumpy outside, but that old girl has the softest heart you'll find. After Bill was born, she couldn't keep herself away at all.”

Harry looked up at Mrs. Weasley’s face while he lay on the couch, resting his head on her lap. The longing in her eyes could melt his heart.

“And that was it, how I ended up as Mrs. Weasley in the middle of a war. The rest, as they say, is history.” She smiled down at him and continued to run her fingers on his scalp. 

“I think that was very brave,” Harry said. 

“Tsk! — it was reckless, that's what it really was. But… Life's too short for regrets. We were lucky Arthur's father had this piece of land he didn't use — he was always a man of the big cities, old Mr. Weasley. He helped us a lot those first few years before he passed. Such a sweet man; I still miss him.”

“Did you ever duel again?” Harry asked. She had told him earlier, to his near astonishment, that she was a dueling champion during her school years, winning gold medals and trophies throughout her time at Hogwarts. The professors had urged her to pursue a career in the professional leagues, but the young Mrs. Weasley had preferred to start a family with the man she loved. 

“No,” she said. “I practiced here and there for a while, but a kid or two leaves you with very little time on your hands. You'll see when you have yours.”

“I’d prefer to stay with my family, too.”

Mrs. Weasley's eyes filled with sympathy for him. 

“It's truly the most precious thing we can own. I didn't know your parents, Harry, but I'm sure if they could, they'd want to spend every minute of their day with you.”

“Thanks, Mrs.s Weasley.”

“You're welcome, dear.”

There were a few minutes of comfortable silence between them until Harry felt the need to speak again. 

“Do you think we’ll ever get out of here?”

Her bosom rose and fell, partially obscuring her face from his angle, but Harry could see her faraway look as she stared at the flames of the hearth. 

“I truly hope we do, Harry.”

Winter had arrived again, and some days they spent like that, sitting by the fire, talking about whatever came to mind or just in silence, enjoying each other's company. Harry came to learn he liked being near Mrs. Weasley and conversing with her. She wasn't as intense as Rony or as demanding and hungry as Ginny. She was just… easy to be with. Comfortable. 

Both of them tried not to speak directly of the time they were spending locked in the fake world, even as the seasons advanced. As the snow started falling again, Harry mustered the courage to peek at the clock, held inside a drawer in the twins’ bedroom for so many months. 

When the day came, he stepped down the stairs holding the clock, to find the ground floor of the Burrow in darkness, all lamps extinguished. He found her sitting by herself in the kitchen, illuminated by the light of a single candle atop the dining table. It was as if she already knew. 

“Hi, Mrs. Weasley.”

“Hello, Harry,” she said, looking up to him for a split second before going back to stare at the candle. Outside, the snow was piling up against the windows. 

“Do you mind if I…” he said and waited for her to shake her head before pulling a chair for himself. He was wearing the sweater she had transfigured for him earlier in the winter. It had been one of Fred’s shirts before. “I've been watching it again recently —” he showed her the clock “— remember how it counts the hours? I've done the math and…”

She extended a hand, asking for the device. Harry handed it to her, and she stared at it for a moment. It read 8764. 

“Merry Christmas, Mrs. Weasley.”

For the first time in a whole year, Harry saw her eyes fill up with tears. She put the clock down, and he took the chance to grab her hand. He held it tight while the strongest woman he knew broke down crying in front of him. 

She sobbed for minutes, and when she was done, she wiped her eyes with the back of a sleeve. “I-I’m sorry, you-you didn't need to see this, but I can't…”

“It's alright, Mrs. Weasley, you don't have to hold it in because of me.”

“...I can't do it anymore. I want to go home. I want to see A-Arthur, Percy, and the girls, and even those stupid two who got us into this mess. I miss them so much.”

Harry felt a knot forming in his throat and gulped to push it down. 

“I miss them too,” he said. “I miss Hogwarts and… Hermione and the others. I'm sorry, I tried everything I know.” He picked up the clock. “Maybe it's better if we break it.”

“No!” she exclaimed. “We don’t know what’s going to happen if it breaks.”

“It could send us back,” Harry reasoned.

“Or we could just be… gone,” she said. “T-these sorts of magical accidents are more common than you think — somebody thinks they’re clever, messing with magic they don’t understand, and they end up dead. No, I don’t want you to do anything dangerous with it.”

“What if we really stay here forever?”

“That… that won't happen,” she said with conviction. Her tears had mostly dried by then, and only the reddened eyes and smeared cheeks remained. “That cannot happen. We will find a way, no matter how long it takes. Tomorrow, we will go back to looking for magic to get us out.”

Harry smiled; her words reassured him. The moment of weakness, come and gone so quickly, made her look even more formidable in his eyes. Even more beautiful. 

“You're right, we mustn’t give up so easily. Thank you, Mrs. Weasley.”

“But, we have to accept that we might stay here for some time. It could be y-years.”

Harry nodded. “I didn't hate this year with you. I can take a couple more, Mrs. Weasley.”

“I wish you wouldn't have to, but thank you for saying that. For the record, I enjoyed it too. Just one thing — can you call me Molly? There are no other Weasleys here, you don't need to keep calling me Mrs. And I'd like to hear my name again.”

“Of course, Mrs—Molly.”

He felt her squeeze his hand, reminding him they were still holding each other's. 

“Thank you, dear.”

They moved to the couch, to the front of the fireplace, where he pulled her close with an arm, and she rested her head on his shoulder. He asked her to tell him stories from Christmas past and apologized for not having any good ones. They stayed there for a long time, even as a blizzard started outside and the snow whipped against the windows, until both fell asleep holding each other. 

*

Harry woke up with a crick in his neck, the couch cushions pressing into his back. Molly was still nestled against him, her breathing steady and soft. The fire had died down to embers overnight, and the room felt chilly despite the magic hearth. Outside, the blizzard had eased, leaving a fresh blanket of snow that muffled everything. He shifted carefully, not wanting to wake her, but she stirred anyway.

"Morning," she murmured, blinking up at him. Her curls were tousled, and she rubbed her eyes like a kid just out of bed. "Did we sleep here all night?"

They headed upstairs after a quick wash and didn’t waste any time starting their work. Percy's room was spotless, as always — even in this fake version of the Burrow. Harry dragged in a small table from the hallway while Molly cleared the desk of old quills and ink bottles. She pulled a couple of spare chairs so they could be more comfortable, and soon the space looked like a makeshift workshop.

"First, let's list what we know," Molly said, unrolling a parchment. 

Harry nodded, placing the mantel clocks and a couple of pocket watches on the desk. "The twins said it was a prank timer gone wrong. Maybe it's some looped charm — creates a bubble where time runs but loops back when it ends."

"Could be," she replied. "Let's try a basic finite on one of these normal clocks first, see if we can mimic the effect."

Even though Harry had tried most of these simple charms already, they spent the morning casting termination spells on the mantle clock, trying to "freeze" its wheels while keeping the mechanism running.

By afternoon, they moved to diagnostics. Molly cast a series of revealing charms on the fake-time clock itself. They found runes on the clock and sketched them, comparing them to runes in an old book on the shelf. For hours, they etched counter-runes on scrap metal, testing if they could "punch" a hole in the boundary somehow. Harry flew out to the invisible wall with one piece, pressing it against the barrier. It shimmered but held firm. "No luck," he reported back, wind-chapped.

Days blurred into a routine. Mornings: theory on parchment. Molly would explain temporal charms she'd half-remembered from school — "Time's tricky; even experts avoid it." They'd try syncing a normal clock to the fake one, casting a charm to duplicate the device, but the copies just ticked normally.

One experiment involved a signaling spell. "If we can send something outside," Harry suggested, "maybe we can break the spell." Out by the pond, Molly launched it. The spark shot up, burst into colors, but faded without crossing any boundary. "Stuck, like us," she sighed.

Afternoons brought frustration. An attempt to reverse the clock's timer with time charms made the numbers flicker but not drop. Molly rubbed her temples. "Enough for today. My head's spinning."

They took to walking after those experiments, stretching their legs around the yard. "Tell me about your first broom," she said one day, kicking snow. Harry shared his Nimbus story, the dive for the Remembrall. She laughed. "Charlie was like you. He once looped the whole Burrow chimney."

Breaks stretched. One evening, after a dud experiment where a linked mirror just reflected their own faces endlessly, Molly found an old Wizard's Chess set in Ron's room. "Fancy a game?"

They set it up on the kitchen table. Her pieces were aggressive, smashing his pawns early. "Checkmate," she grinned after an hour. "Again?"

He lost three times, but by the fourth, he took her queen. "Lucky," she teased, but her eyes sparkled.

In time, research sessions were shortened. They'd start with enthusiasm — one afternoon, they tried to overload the clock with a surge of magic, wands pointed together, casting the spell. Sparks flew, but the device just hummed. "Bugger," Harry said.

Molly chuckled. "Let's fly. I need to work off some steam."

Flying became an almost daily activity. Harry taught her dives; she showed him steady hovers for scouting. "It’s useful for spotting gnomes," she said. One clear day, they raced to the boundary and back. She won by cheating — a quick Leviosa on his broom tail. "All's fair in love and war!" she called, laughing as they landed.

Games piled on. Exploding Snap in the evenings, cards blasting. "You’re cheating," Harry accused after a singed eyebrow.

"Strategy," she winked.

Stories flowed between them. She'd recount Weasley antics; he'd share Hogwarts mishaps. "Fred and George once turned Percy's badge to 'Pinhead," she said. Harry roared.

Months in, experiments felt rote. They tried a portal charm, sketching a door rune on the floor. But midway, Molly yawned. "Tea first?" They ended up chatting over cups made from leaves from her garden for hours, forgetting the rune.

Another afternoon, post-failure, she dragged out old records. “Arthur had these Muggle discs for years. I think it was one of his first purchases." Scratchy music filled the room. She pulled him up. "Dance?"

"I'm rubbish," he protested.

She taught steps, simple waltzes. He stepped on her toes; she giggled. "Loosen up." Soon, they spun, laughing at fumbles.

Research dwindled to mornings only. They'd poke the clock, cast a spell or two. "No change," Harry would say.

"Cards?" Molly would suggest walking or chess. One day, they built snow forts, lobbing charmed snowballs when winter came again. Hers collapsed his with a bang. "Victory!" she cheered, snow in her hair.

Harry grinned, tackling her into a drift. They rolled, breathless. "Truce?"

She smiled up at him, the cold tingeing her cheeks and nose pink.

"No!" She threw snow at his face.

**

Harry stretched his arms overhead, working out the kinks in his shoulders from another long session hunched over the desk. The fake-time clock sat there mocking him, its numbers ticking up relentlessly — now at 17673 hours. He'd lost track of exactly how many months that was, but the leaves outside were turning red again with another autumn creeping in. Molly stood by the window in Percy's room, staring out at the unchanging boundary in the distance. She'd transfigured one of Rony's old blouses into something better-fitting, the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, her red curls tied back with a scrap of ribbon.

"Any luck with that last one?" she asked, not turning around.

He shook his head, even though she couldn't see it. "Nah. I tried linking it to the mantle clock again — cast a charm inside the box to isolate the gears. Thought maybe it'd create a mini-loop and force the fake-time to sync or glitch. It didn’t really do anything."

She sighed, finally glancing over her shoulder. "Worth a shot. At least it didn't explode like that overcharge attempt last week."

Harry chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck where a faint singe mark still lingered. "Yeah, lesson learned — no more channeling magic through the casing without a shield first."

They'd been at it for what felt like forever, piecing together scraps of theory from half-remembered Hogwarts lessons and whatever logic they could apply. It was frustrating, but the routine had become... comfortable. Mornings in the atelier, afternoons wandering or tinkering elsewhere. 

Harry glanced at the parchment on the desk, covered in their notes — sketches of runes, crossed-out spells, doodles in the margins where one of them had gotten bored.

Molly turned from the window, brushing her hands together. "Enough for today? My eyes are crossing."

"Yeah," he agreed, pushing back from the desk. "Fancy a walk? The leaves are changing — might as well enjoy the scenery."

She smiled, a small one that crinkled the corners of her eyes. "Lead the way."

They headed out, pulling on their transfigured jackets against the crisp air. The path around the Burrow was familiar now, a loop they'd worn into the grass over countless strolls. Harry kicked at a pile of leaves, watching them scatter. He chuckled suddenly. 

“What?” Molly asked. 

"Remember that echo charm we tried last month? The one where we shouted into the clock like a Howler?"

She laughed then, looping her arm through his without thinking — something that had started casually during one windy walk and just stuck. "Oh, Merlin, yes. Thought it'd bounce the sound out to the real world. Instead, it just repeated 'Get us out!' in Fred's voice for an hour."

"George's," Harry corrected with a grin. "Fred's is a bit higher-pitched."

She squeezed his arm, shaking her head. "No, no, I still know my sons better than anyone, mister."

The walks had turned into their unwind time, chatting about anything to fill the quiet. Lately, it was less about escape plans and more about... them. "Tell me again about that dueling tournament in your fifth year," Harry said as they rounded the pond.

Molly's eyes lit up. "The one against that Slytherin prefect? He was all bluster — fancied himself a curse expert. I hit him with a simple Jelly-Legs from behind a shield, and he tripped over his own robes. The crowd loved it."

Harry pictured it, a younger Molly dodging spells with that same determined glint she got during their experiments. "You must've been unstoppable."

She shrugged, but there was a pleased flush on her cheeks. "I had my moments. What about you? That story about sneaking past the Manticore — did you really loop around mid-air?"

"More like panicked and hoped for the best," he admitted, and they both laughed, their breaths puffing in the cool air.

Evenings blurred into games or stories by the fire. One night, after a failed attempt to "rewind" the clock with a modified Reparo — which had only polished the casing — they settled in the living room with the chess set. Harry had improved, but Molly still checkmated him in twenty moves.

"You're getting sneaky," she said, resetting the pieces. "That knight ambush almost worked."

"Learned from the best," he replied, meeting her eyes a beat longer than usual. She looked away first, tucking a curl behind her ear.

The snow had come back once more, marking their third year in the fake world, and in the night they imagined to be Christmas Eve, they dug out Arthur's old Muggle records again.

Molly spent a long time choosing the record until she found an old-sounding, slow one she liked. The music filled the room as Molly pulled him up for a dance.

"Come on, you've got the steps now."

Harry groaned but let her lead, their hands clasped, her other on his shoulder. They swayed to the melody, closer than before — her head just reaching his chin. "See? Not so bad," she murmured.

He spun her gently, pulling her back in. They moved together, the fire crackling softly. Her hand shifted on his shoulder, fingers brushing his neck. The record changed, moving along the artist’s repertoire, all slow, romantic tunes. 

They danced the night away, bodies pressed together, stepping in rhythm. He got drunk on the pleasant smell coming from her, and only when the disc finally ended did he notice how exhausted he was, and they both collapsed on the couch.

"Tired?" she asked.

"A bit," he admitted. She leaned her head on his shoulder without a word. 

The air felt heavier between them, and they stayed in silence a long time, each apparently lost in their thoughts. 

"Tell me something I don't know about you," Molly said suddenly, voice somewhat distant.

He thought for a minute.

"When I was a kid, I used to sleep in the cupboard under the stairs. My Aunt and Uncle didn’t give me a bedroom. When it was really cold, I liked to pretend I was on a mission in an ice fortress, hiding from the villain. I thought… if I completed the mission, my parents would finally come take me home."

She raised her head. "Harry, that’s… terrible. I'm sorry."

"It’s fine," he said softly. "Your turn. What’s something I don’t know about you?”

Molly looked down at her fingers. 

“I… I had a sister once.” Harry’s eyebrows shot up. “Her name was Penny. She was a couple of years older than me. My brothers, Gideon and Fabian, were mad about her; they loved her so much. Penny… Penny was really beautiful. She was sweet and gentle and cooked like no one else. I was jealous of her because, compared to her, I was just a loud-mouthed tomboy who liked to curse the other kids.” Molly laughed lightly. “But I loved her too.”

Harry almost didn’t want to ask. “What happened to her?”

“She met a boy, a trouble-maker from Merlin-knows-where. Nobody in our family liked him. But she wanted to marry him, and no one could convince her otherwise. I was fifteen then, and the night she’d elope with him, I saw her leaving. I could’ve yelled and stopped her, but I let her go because I thought, if she was so perfect, she could make her own choices. The next morning, we got the news of the accident. There was a problem with the Portkey's charm. Dad identified their bodies.”

“I’m sorry, Molly,” Harry said, not knowing what else to say.

“And that’s it,” Molly finished, looking up at him again. The edges of her eyes were moist. “I don’t think I’ve even told Arthur about this one. Just a stupid, sad story really, that happened because of a stupid, sad girl.”

Harry grabbed her hand in his. “It’s not stupid,” Harry said. “And the girl isn’t stupid either. She’s the most amazing, most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. I’m sorry you never got to say goodbye, but if Penny could see you now, I know she’d think the same.”

Her eyes softened, and she reached out, brushing a strand of hair from his forehead. The touch lingered, her fingers tracing down his cheek, along the beard.

“I wish I were half the person you think I am.”

They stared into each other’s eyes. Green on light brown. Slowly, very slowly, she leaned in, her face inches from his, and the distance closing. The firelight danced in her eyes, and for a heartbeat, neither moved. Then, slowly, she closed the gap, her lips brushing his — soft, tentative.

Harry froze, then kissed back, his hand finding her waist. It deepened for a moment, warm and real in the endless fake world. For a second, it felt like eternity. 

But then she pulled back suddenly, eyes wide. "Oh—Harry, I—I'm sorry. That was... I shouldn't have..."

He blinked, face heating. "Molly, I—"

She stood abruptly, hands trembling as she smoothed her blouse. "I need... excuse me." Without another word, she hurried up the stairs, the door to her bedroom clicking shut behind her.

Harry sat there, staring at the fire, heart pounding, wondering how that had just happened. 

*

For two people living in the same house and confined to the same square meters, it was surprising how long they could go without meeting each other. Harry didn’t see Molly for days after that night. Twice, he walked to her door, but decided against it just before his knuckles touched the wood. 

He focused instead on the research, which was slowly but surely proving itself useless. He couldn’t find a way to break the spell of the Clock, no matter what he tried. He had read all the books in the house twice over the course of those three years; taken quite a few leaps of logic to find unconventional ways; they even tried altering some charms to create his own, though that was very dangerous, and Molly banned it very quickly when he melted the Weasley’s Grandfather clock. 

He was at his wits’ end and didn’t know what to do anymore. 

“Harry… are you there?”

He raised his head from his hands at hearing Molly’s voice from behind, and turned to see her standing at the door of their workshop. 

“Molly?”

She walked inside, glancing around at the walls, avoiding his eyes. She was fidgeting with the hem of her sleeve, a habit he had only seen in Rony before. 

“Are you okay?” he asked, fearing something might be wrong with her.  

“Oh, yes, I’m okay, no need to worry,” she said and finally looked at him. “I want to — I want to apologize for that night. I just… don’t know what came over me. Do you think we can forget that ever happened?”

Hearing that from her — his friends’ mother — shouldn’t hurt, and yet it did. He had been ready to say those same words to her when they saw each other again, but a sinking feeling in his chest came when she voiced them. 

“I… yeah, of course. Already forgotten.”

She sighed in relief, body relaxing. “Thanks,” she said and came over to sit by him. “What are you cooking up there?”

Their lives returned almost to their routine after that. But something had changed. Her laugh sounded just a tad brighter. Her smiles made her slightly more beautiful. Her curls bounced. When they chatted, Harry could listen to her voice for hours and hours without getting tired. 

Time went by as this… longing grew and grew inside Harry. If he still had his Geass, it wouldn't be a problem, but not only was it long gone, he knew very well what abusing that power could bring him. No, it was for the best that he didn’t have it anymore. 

***

To say that time inside the fake world flowed unchanged was not entirely true. Some winters were harsher than others; autumns where every tree turned red came and went; occasional storms hit the Burrow with the rage of angry gods.

On a particularly hot summer day, Harry found his favorite spot under a tree near the pond close to the Burrow and enjoyed the shade and nice breeze. Something else he found during these years in the fake world was that rest and sleep felt so much better when one knew no problems were waiting for him upon waking. No psychotic killers, no relatives who hated you, no homework. Just more rest. It was liberating, in a way. 

He had his eyes closed, listening to the wind and the leaves fall slowly to the ground as he thought about his time in this fake world. He had no idea how many years it had been now (six by the count of the winters, but he could be missing a winter or two there) since he entered. He could consult the Clock, but the thing was kept somewhere in the workshop, and it had been at least a couple of years since Harry had last experimented with the device.

Yes, after thousands of failed attempts, of charred clothes and broken furniture, Harry and Molly had essentially given up on trying to break the spell of the Clock. Not officially, of course, but none seemed eager to end the ‘break’ they started one particularly frustrating evening. 

Memories were an interesting thing. His years in the fake-Burrow already outnumbered the ones during which he knew his friends and Hogwarts; some memories from then he could recall as if they happened just that morning, like the feeling of Rony’s body against him in the night of the Chamber of Secrets, but others were so faint as though they were from a lifetime ago. What were they even doing before entering the Fake-world? Why didn't they stay at Hogwarts for Christmas? Even the faces of people like Neville or Dean Thomas were blurry in his mind. 

He wondered if, given enough time, he would forget everybody’s face. 

“Hey, what are you doing over here?”

There was a sound of something dragging on the ground and the creaking of wood.

“Taking a nap,” he said.

“Did you master sleep-talking, then?” she asked with a hint of sarcasm. 

Harry did not open his eyes yet. “I'd say about 90% there.”

“That’s quite the progress.”

“This woman keeps showing up to help me train. Always ends up interrupting my naps, though.”

“What a villain!”

“Yeah, she's lucky she's so pretty.”

He opened his eyes to see Molly’s beautiful smile shining down at him. She had crouched under the fence, kneeling over him, and the sunlight caught the red of her curls just right so they seemed to glow.

“Come on, master napper, don't just sleep the day away, I just finished it — you said you wanted to see it.”

Harry sat up. “Finally?”

“It didn't take that long.”

“Alright, alright.” He chuckled softly, standing up. “Well, shall we go?”

They walked together back to the Burrow. Molly told him about getting a sudden inspiration for the right colors and tone, but Harry only half listened. His eyes were glued to the tight overalls and paint-stained white shirt that hugged her voluptuous figure. For a while now, it had become difficult to look anywhere else whenever they were together, which was incredibly often. He was sure she had noticed already.

They climbed the steps to what had once been Rony and Ginny’s room. A couple of years before, after they mastered the transfiguration of inanimate objects, Harry and Molly strove to learn how to modify the structures of the Burrow itself. It took them months, but with the help of old books scattered around the house, they successfully expanded the bedrooms' interiors. Later came modifications: another wallpaper, a new, larger window, and a new bathroom. The result was somewhat different or entirely repurposed quarters. 

The girls’ bedroom had become a sort of painting atelier for Molly, something she had always wanted to learn but never had time for. A large open window now poured light onto the tall, white walls, and a dozen or so canvases stood around the room, displaying doodles and unfinished paintings. The main one, the one she wanted to show him, was bigger than the others and located right at the center of the chaos.

“There, what do you think?” she said, trying to sound casual.

It was a painting, animated by magic, of Hogwarts as seen by someone crossing the black lake in their first year. The little boats with the dark, featureless students were there; the moon in the sky as well as its reflection on the waters; and the castle itself, basking in blue moonlight, with its dozens of towers and hundreds of orange points for the windows. It was such a vivid picture that Harry felt as if someone had plucked his own memory of the scene and transferred it to the linen.

Molly kept stealing glances at him, and he decided to end her torment.

“I love it,” he said, truthfully. “It’s fantastic, Molly.”

She blushed. “Thank you. I wasn't sure if I should have used a darker shade of blue for the moonlight — actually, looking again, I think I should, maybe if I give a few more strokes and—”

“Molly, really, it's perfect,” he said. 

She broke into a huge grin and, almost buzzing with happiness, jumped into his arms. He laughed and hugged her as much as he could before she broke away. 

Later, they transfigured an old boot into a frame to fit the painting and spent good hours looking for the perfect spot to hang it. The wall over the mantelpiece in the living room ended up being the best spot, and they cleared the remaining pictures there to give it a clear view. She finally took Mr. Weasley’s and the children’s old photos up to her room for safekeeping.

At long last, the house was theirs and theirs alone.

Not that it was something Harry had planned, but it was the sort of thing that built up over time. The more they changed around the house, the more it felt less like the Burrow from Harry's Hogwarts years, and more like something they owned together. 

He mentioned it to her that night, in the living room (now much bigger and more comfortable), when they sat together to drink tea (made with water from the pond and herbs from the garden) and look at the painting.

“It's strange,” she replied. “I lived here for nearly twenty years, but I get the same feeling. It's… different.”

Harry didn't feel like he was losing something, but maybe she did, so he said carefully, “If we're gonna be here, we should at least make it like we want.”

It took a second, but she said, “You're right. Think we can do something about the cold? I always hated how it gets in the winter.”

“My room doesn't get cold,” he said. It was his room now.

“Well, mister, you don't sleep on the top floor.”

“Then just come sleep down there with me. Problem solved.”

“What a great solution! How did I not think of that before?” She said sarcastically.

“You can't have all the great ideas, Molly.”

He had been playing that game for a while, that unassuming flirting that aimed to drag a smile out of her. And he managed just that again.

“How about we stick to my tested and true great ideas for now? Like you coming here and giving me one of your shoulder rubs? Painting always makes me so stiff.”

“That, I can do.”

Harry sat on the couch behind her while Molly tied her locks into a bun. His hands found her shoulder blades first, pressing gently into the tight knots that had formed from hours bent over parchment and paint. The warmth of her skin seeped through the blouse. She let out a small sigh, her head tilting forward, and he moved up to her neck, thumbs tracing the tense lines there. “Better?” he asked, voice low. She nodded, a faint hum of approval escaping her. 

Harry’s hands lingered on her neck, his thumbs circling slowly over the smooth skin, easing deeper into the taut muscles. His fingers slid gently along the curve of her shoulders, brushing the stray tendrils of hair that had escaped her bun, and she tilted her head slightly, exposing more of her neck. He followed the line with careful presses, his touch growing bolder yet still reverent. He continued the massage, following the cues of her little moans, until he deemed it sufficient, resting his hands on her shoulders for a minute.

Slowly, he enveloped her with his arms and nuzzled the nape of her neck. She smelled like something hard to describe: sweet and tender but also sharp, and never failed to set fire to his loins. He breathed in deep and squeezed her lightly. Her bosom pressed against his forearms. Hard nipples poked him through the thin top.

“Harry…” she warned.

“What is it?” he whispered next to her ear. He could swear she shuddered a little.

“You have to stop.” She did nothing to stop him.

“Why?”

“...you know why.”

This was hardly their first less-than-innocent moment together since that kiss a few years in the past. Time and again, one of them would let a touch linger too long, or a hand travel too far, but she would always interrupt it, pushing him away and leaving both of them frustrated.

Both of them, Harry knew. Molly wanted it as much as he did. He could feel it in the way she responded to his touch, in the way she looked at him when she thought he wasn't looking. But still, she resisted it. Something inside her fought against her desire for him.

“It's been so long since we came here, I don't think anything from outside really matters anymore,” he said.

“...they will once we get out.”

“Honestly, I don't think we will.”

She peeled his arms off her and turned around. He thought she would be angry, but she stared sadly at him.

“We can't think like that,” she murmured, touching his beard with her fingertips.

“We have to face the truth. We tried, and we couldn't get out. We… need to start to live again.”

They didn't speak much for the next few days. Harry occupied himself however he could in his personal projects, while Molly kept to her atelier and her canvases. Here and there, she'd ask for his help with something, or he'd try to strike up a conversation with her, but the tension between them was intense, like something was dying to get out of his chest.

*

It was night in the fake-world that had become their home, and Harry lay on his transfigured bed that had once been the Twins’ beds. Sleep hadn't come easily that night, and he watched the rain outside heavily hit the expanded window. It was loud enough that he didn't hear the door to his bedroom opening.

“Harry?” she called when she stood right next to the bed. She was wearing the yellow pajamas she had transfigured from Rony’s clothes a few years back: shorts and a top that left a good part of her belly exposed.

“Hey,” he said, sitting up. “Everything alright?”

“Oh, yes. I’m just having some trouble sleeping with all this noise.”

“Same,” he said and made space so she could sit down at the edge of the bed. Her fragrance filled his nostrils as she got closer. “Where do you think they come from?”

“The clouds?” He nodded. “I have no idea. It's almost like there's a whole other world outside the barrier, don't you think?”

“That can't be true,” he said. “Do you think magic created a whole world we just can't see?”

“I really don't know. Doesn't look like we're gonna find out in any case.”

“Yeah…”

They continued to watch the rain in silence for a few minutes. 

“What did you mean by starting to live again?” she asked suddenly, voice only high enough so he could hear her. He felt her gaze on him.

“I meant that, to live. You and me. Build a life together, here.”

“...do you have any idea what you're saying?”

He finally stared back into her eyes. “Yes. I know exactly what I'm saying.”

She shook her head. “You only say that because you're stuck here with me. What w-we’re feeling is not real; it's because there's no one else around.”

“Molly, we've been here for years. There's no one who wouldn't fall in love with you after so long.”

Her face gained some color under the low light caused by the clouds. Harry slid over on the bed, closer to her.

“What if we regret it?” she asked.

“...life's too short for regrets.”

He didn't wait for her to reply — he leaned in, slipping an arm around her soft waist. Molly didn't pull away; she placed a hand on his naked chest and let him close the distance between them. His face hovered an inch from hers, their breaths mingling in the clammy air. 

Like the last time, it was she who sealed the deal and pressed her lips to his own. He pulled her to him until he felt her bosom against him. Her hand traveled up, and she wrapped her arms around his neck as they kissed. 

He held her by the waist, fingers subtly burying in the smooth flesh. His tongue edged into her mouth, asking for and demanding entrance; she allowed, and they licked at each other in a wet, fervent tangle, tongues sliding and coiling. He couldn’t quite believe he was finally tasting her after so long, learning the sweetness of her lips. He groaned into her mouth, the sound vibrating between them, and his hands roamed lower, cupping the generous curve of her hips, squeezing the flesh that gave so invitingly under his grip. She arched into him with a muffled whimper, her body molding to his.

He gasped for breath, breaking the kiss. Through heavy-lidded eyes, weighted by desire, they drank each other in. Face flushed, Molly’s lips were red and moist. It was like some spell broke, a restraint that had stilled them lifted off with the contact. Molly attacked him. Her fingers dug into the nape of his neck, pulling him deeper as if she could devour him whole, her full breasts pressing insistently against his chest, the fabric of her blouse a frustrating barrier to the softness beneath. 

One of his hands descended to her thigh, clenching the plentiful meat there, and he pulled her to him, helping her throw a leg over him and climb on his lap, while he leaned onto the headboard. She sat above him, delicious weight atop his crotch. He slid his palms along her legs, under the fabric of the shorts, then up to her butt, where he squeezed hard, and received a long moan in response. 

Molly kissed him ferociously, holding him by the hair and chin, pushing her tongue in his mouth, sucking on his lips. She ground her hips on his, chasing the feeling of his hard cock poking below. 

His hands ventured higher now, slipping beneath the hem of her top to explore the warm expanse of her back, fingers tracing the subtle ridges of her spine before splaying wide to pull her closer, reveling in the plush give of her body against his. Molly's breath hitched as she mirrored him, her palms roaming over the lean planes of his chest, nails grazing lightly over his nipples, sending jolts of fire straight to his throbbing cock. Their tongues dueled in a slick frenzy, saliva mingling in messy strings as they parted for air only to clash once more. 

It was incredible how, without being fat, the young Molly was meaty in all the right places, soft and full everywhere that mattered. The air thickened with their shared heat, scents of arousal curling around them, her generous curves clinging to him, driving them to the brink where control frayed, and raw need took over.

They parted, breaths hitching in ragged unison, eyes locked in a haze of unbridled want. Molly's fingers trembled as she reached for the hem of her top, peeling it upward in a slow, deliberate reveal. The fabric whispered against her skin, unveiling the creamy expanse of her torso, giving way to the magnificent bounty above — her breasts, heavy and pendulous, spilling free like ripe fruits begging to be savored. They were a marvel, full and round and still perky; pale flesh veined faintly blue, capped by wide, rosy areolas and nipples already stiffened to eager peaks, dusky and inviting in the dim light.

Harry's gaze devoured them, his cock twitching beneath her as he drank in the sight, the sheer volume of her filling his vision. Hands rising instinctively to cup their weight, thumbs brushing the undersides where the skin was silkiest, lifting them slightly to feel their heft yield in his palms. She arched further, a soft gasp escaping her parted lips, her body quivering under his touch as if electrified, the faint sheen of sweat glistening on her cleavage like dew on petals.

Unable to resist any longer, he leaned forward, burying his face in the warm valley between them, inhaling her scent: musky, feminine, laced with the subtle lavender of her soap. His mouth found one nipple, latching on with a hungry suckle, swirling around the pebbled bud. At the same time, his hand kneaded the other breast, fingers sinking into the plush mound, rolling the twin peak between thumb and forefinger until it hardened further. 

Molly keened, her hands threading through his messy hair, pulling him closer as she ground against his lap. He suckled harder, teeth grazing lightly to elicit shudders from her, switching to the neglected globe with a pop of release, lavishing it with the same fervent attention, tongue lapping broad strokes over the areola.

Harry's hands roamed greedily, one abandoning her breast to slide down her side, tracing her curves before delving over the waistband of her shorts. The fabric was completely soaked, signaling her extreme arousal if everything else didn’t make it obvious. Emboldened, he slipped his hand beneath, fingers brushing the damp curls at her apex. Molly shuddered, breaking into a low, throaty moan as he teased the swollen nub hidden there, circling it with feather-light strokes that had her thighs clenching around him.

“Harry…” she moaned. “...wait…”

He retracted his hand and let her teat slide off his mouth. 

Molly hesitated, her breath coming in shallow bursts, her eyes dark with a storm of longing and uncertainty. But the fire between them had ignited too fiercely to be quenched now. With a soft, trembling exhale, she shifted, lifting herself from his lap, her thighs brushing against his. Harry felt the immediate loss of her warmth, the delicious pressure of her body vanishing.

She sat on her bum, the dim light casting shadows across her flushed skin, her bosom still heaving with each ragged breath. Her hands moved to the waistband of her shorts, fingers hooking beneath the fabric. She peeled them down, inch by inch, the material clinging briefly to the damp heat between her thighs before sliding free. Beneath, she wore nothing — her sex bared to him, nestled in a soft nest of auburn curls, glistening with arousal, making his cock twitch painfully against the confines of his pajamas.

Molly slid the shorts along her legs, kicking them aside with a quiet rustle, her gaze never leaving his, bold yet vulnerable. Then, gracefully, she lowered herself to her knees between his legs. Her hands, warm and steady despite the faint tremor in her fingertips, reached for him, palms sliding up his thighs with feather-light pressure that ignited every nerve. She tugged at the drawstring of his pajama pants, loosening it with a gentle pull, her breath hot against his skin as she leaned closer. Harry's pulse thundered in his ears as she hooked her fingers into the waistband, drawing the fabric down slowly, the cool air kissing his heated flesh as she freed him.

He was out in a moment, cock standing like a pole. She gazed at it, and the work of pulling his pants down momentarily stopped. It was probably the only other hard penis she ever saw, other than Mr. Weasley’s.

Harry pushed the thought aside. He shouldn’t be thinking of him at that moment.

He grabbed the hem of his pants as well, fingers brushing hers, and pushed down until it was completely gone. They were naked then, together, like he had dreamed of so many times. She crawled up to him and kissed him again, a tad more tender now. Harry grasped at her sides, pulling her nearer, their bodies aligning in a heated embrace — her plush form pressing into the hardness of his lithe one, skin igniting skin as arms wrapped around waists and shoulders. His cock nestled against her buttcrack.

“Molly… I want you…” He whispered to her lips, breaking the kiss.

Commanded by her desire, she raised her hips slowly. They were so close that all he could see was her face and the top of her breasts, which were hitting his chin. His cock, however, he felt rising, head touching a damp heat right above. Molly lowered an arm, and her hand grabbed his length. Her breath hitched, her hand steady, yet trembling as she guided him, the slick heat of her entrance brushing the swollen tip of his cock, and the curls framing her sex tickled his skin.

She descended, her folds parting like curtains, enveloping him painfully and sumptuously, slowly. Harry groaned, the sensation was overwhelming — a tight, liquid clasp that yielded and gripped in perfect harmony, her inner walls fluttering around him as if alive, drawing him deeper into her core. She was impossibly warm, slick with arousal that eased his entry, her juices coating him in a glossy sheen, the friction a delicious burn that sent sparks racing up his spine.

She sank fully, her hips settling against his with a soft, wet slap, her pussy swallowing him to the hilt, the base of his cock nestled against her outer lips that stretched taut around his girth. She closed her eyes, and a low, throaty moan escaped her, vibrating through her chest and into his as she adjusted, her body quivering, her clit brushing his pubic bone in a spark of pleasure that made her thighs clench. Harry’s hands roamed her back, fingers digging into the flesh of her waist, feeling the subtle shift of muscles beneath her skin.

Their embrace tightened, her arms looping around his neck again, pulling him into the cradle of her breasts, the soft, heavy globes pressing against his face like pillows of warm silk. He buried himself there as she began to move, lifting her hips in a slow, deliberate rhythm. Each rise sent a rush of cool air over his slick length, only for her to descend again, sheathing him in her velvet heat, the sensation a rhythmic pulse of tightness and release that built like a gathering storm. Her inner muscles clenched around him instinctively, milking him with every downward thrust, drawing guttural sounds from deep in his throat.

Molly's breaths came in ragged gasps, her body undulating against his, skin scraping skin. He thrust up to meet her, hips bucking in sync. The wet sounds of their joining filled the room, a lewd symphony underscored by her whimpers and his grunts, the friction igniting every nerve where they connected, her pussy gripping him like a wet fist of satin.

Sweat beaded on their skin, mingling where they pressed together, her curls tickling his shoulders as she arched, head thrown back. Harry kissed her neck, her collarbone, the flesh above her bosom. His hands slid lower, cupping the ample swell of her ass, fingers sinking into the pillowy flesh to guide her pace, pulling her down harder, deeper, until the world narrowed to the exquisite slide of him within her, the building pressure coiling tight inside him. She trembled in his arms, her moans rising in pitch, the flutter of her walls signaling her approaching crest, their bodies locked in a primal dance of give and take, lost to everything but the overwhelming tide of sensation.

She climaxed first. Her body trembled in his arms, and her legs squeezed around his waist. Her pussy clenched around him like a vice, and that did it for him. He groaned, the release blinding him, and stars danced across his vision, his cock gushing inside her waiting womb.

They relaxed in each other's arms. His head fell to her collarbone, and hers atop his. They breathed deeply, slowly, basking in their intimacy. 

“Harry?” she murmured next to his ear after a while. 

“Yeah?”

“I need to get up.”

He unwrapped his arms from her and let her disentangle from him. His soft cock slid out of her completely as she rose; other than the sticky fluids of their releases, it was also covered by a thin layer of blood.

“What?” Molly said, touching herself down there. Her fingers also came back coated in red. “How did this happen?”

“I think… you were a virgin,” Harry said. “In this body, at least.”

Molly sighed. “I'll be right back.” She got up and made for the door, out of Harry’s vision. 

Harry sat at the edge of the bed, still a bit disoriented with what had just happened. He and Molly had made love. It was a bit unbelievable, even if he had wished for it for quite a while. What now?

Her steps echoed from outside, and she entered the bedroom again, nude and holding a roll of paper towels. Her breasts swayed with every step. 

She bent over and started to wipe his cock. 

“There, all clean,” she said, tonelessly, straightening up. She turned to walk out again, but Harry rose after her. 

He grabbed her wrist.

“Molly.”

Waiting for no response, he embraced her again, gently as he could. Eventually, she let go of the towel and wrapped her arms around his waist. He kissed the top of her head. 

“That felt really fucking good,” he said. 

Molly let out a low laugh against his chest.

“What?” he asked, puzzled.

She looked up. “I thought you were going to say something profound to try and make me feel better.”

“Hmmm, you're right, I should have. I can still say it, if you want.”

“Moment’s gone, you ruined it.”

“You're the one who started to laugh!”

“All your fault, mister.” 

She pushed him, so he tripped and fell onto the bed behind. She climbed after him, giggling, and kissed his lips. They rolled on the bed, playing and fondling each other, and soon he was inside her again. They made love all night, stopping for brief periods where they held each other and chatted as if they’d been long-time lovers.

**

Their life changed after that night. No more longing gazes, no more stilled hands or lingering touches. When they wanted each other, they were quick to drop their clothes and entangle in the dances of love and sex. And for a couple of weeks, that happened with astounding frequency.

If Harry thought Molly was the type of woman used to and content with doing it in the missionary position, that illusion was more than shattered. Molly was a fantastic cook, a great mother, and an admirable housewife. But her real talent was to fuck. 

They had sex in nearly every room of the house, in every position they could execute; in the living room, where he lay behind her and drove into her while clutching her tits; in the atelier, among her paintings, he took her on all fours (“like a bitch,” in her words); in their narrow bathroom, she pinned him to the tiled wall with her butt; in the kitchen, over the table; even outside, with him lying on the dirt while she bounced atop him like a woman possessed, tits swinging wildly in every direction.

And she taught him new things, too. 

One time, they lay in his bed, she crawled atop him, legs around his head, while she, facing in the other direction, sucked his cock. Her pussy, her beautifully pink lips, and red channel were glued to his mouth. She called that position The Ouroboros, and it was done so that a man and a woman could pleasure each other at the same time. 

Molly straddled his face, thighs pressing against his cheeks, and the auburn curls scratched his chin. Harry's hands gripped her hips, fingers sinking into the generous curves, steadying her as he craned upward, his tongue darting out to trace the swollen seam of her pussy, tasting the unmistakable musky flavor of female arousal. Molly moaned, humming around his cock, while he delved deeper, parting her with his tongue, savoring the velvety texture of her inner lips — slick, heated. 

At the other end, Molly’s breasts grazed his abdomen in a drag. Her warm breath hit his sack while she swirled her tongue around the sensitive head, lapping at the slit where precum beaded, salty and viscous. She took him deeper, always deeper, her throat relaxing with practiced ease, the muscles yielding as she swallowed him whole, her nose brushing the coarse hair at his base. 

Harry groaned into her pussy, the vibration humming against her clit, eliciting a muffled cry from her that reverberated around his cock. She deepthroated him in earnest, her head descending in fluid motions, lips stretched around his girth, saliva dribbling down to coat his balls in glossy strands. The sensation was fantastic: the slide of her throat contracting rhythmically, the faint gag that squeezed him like a fist, the wet heat enveloping him completely, pulling him toward the edge with each swallow. His tongue mirrored her urgency, lashing her clit in frantic circles. At the same time, two fingers slipped into her dripping channel, curling to stroke the spongy ridge within, feeling her walls flutter and clamp in response, her juices flowing freely to soak his chin and neck.

Their bodies synced in a primal symphony, her hips grinding down onto his face as she rode his tongue, smearing her essence across his lips and cheeks. Harry's balls tightened, the pressure coiling low in his belly, each plunge of her mouth driving him closer, the dual assault of her throat's grip and the intoxicating taste of her pushing him to the brink. 

Molly's moans grew desperate, muffled around his cock, her pussy contracting wildly around his fingers, the telltale quiver signaling her impending release as they hurtled together toward ecstasy.

They came together, Harry’s semen exploding in her throat, and she kept her lips around the base of his cock while she trembled from her own climax. 

“...that was… fantastic…” he gasped as she climbed off him. He cleaned himself on the sheets.

“You always say that.”

“It always is.”

She grinned. “Alright, you flatterer, budge over.” She lay next to him, arm draped over his chest.

Harry wrapped his own arm around the curve of her waist and kissed her forehead. They stayed in silence for a long time, listening to each other's breaths.

“Harry, I need to ask you something.” 

He blinked, a prickle of worry rising at her tone.

“Sure.”

“It's something I noticed since we've started… You know.” He shifted to look at her. “You’ve slept with someone before, didn't you?”

“...why are you asking that?”

“I'm not angry. I just… need to know, please. Was it Ginny?”

With her brown eyes on his, Harry couldn't find it in himself to lie. He opened his mouth only to close it again in a moment. 

“When?” she asked.

“After the World Cup.” Merlin, it had been so long ago. “It just… happened.”

She looked away, and her fingers traced patterns on his chest.

“...you two were… so young…” Her voice was distant.

“Are you upset?”

“No,” she said. “But maybe I shouldn't have forbidden her from being with you. She might never have the chance again…”

****

They didn't speak again of the people outside for a very long time. Molly did move her things down to his room (“to flee the cold”), and they enjoyed nights without end, of quiet intimacy and passion.

And like that, the years went by. 

The urgency cooled the way every fire eventually does when there is nothing left to burn but itself. Some weeks, they made love every night, greedy and laughing; other months, they curled together under the blankets, her head on his chest, his fingers tracing idle circles on her hip. Their touches never stopped (a hand on the small of her back while she painted, a kiss on the temple when he passed her in the hallway), but the act itself settled into something quieter. They would undress without speaking, lie face-to-face, and move together with the unhurried certainty of people who had already mapped every inch of each other a thousand times. When they came, it was soft, shared, more like falling asleep inside one another than chasing release. 

Over the years, Harry found something to do in the study and practice of transfiguring the house and their furniture. The Burrow, which at first looked like a crooked tower of stacked bedrooms, began to change over time as he worked. The stacks were straightened, the walls standardized to the same type of wood, and the sides extended to allow for larger interior expansions. Even a porch was added.

He documented his progress in transfigured parchments, wrote down ideas, and breakthroughs. Later, he added his memories: the people he used to know; the great castle of Hogwarts he once had the privilege of attending; whatever he could remember from his faraway childhood with the Dursleys. For months, he tried to write down as much as possible.

Molly also took more to transfiguration, but instead of changing the house, she deemed it necessary to change their clothes. Every couple of years, she'd transfigure their entire wardrobes to different styles, different cuts.

As a couple, they had good and bad days. Months lived in harmony, and weeks, they could barely look at each other. Terrible fights over the smallest things, and nights of intense love. They got used to that life, and, overall, Harry thought it was quite enjoyable. He couldn’t imagine himself spending his life with anybody else.

The next turn of their lives came on one unassuming summer morning. 

Outside, Harry worked on transfiguring a part of their sloped roof into a steeper design. In the previous winter, after one of his modifications, snow had accumulated there, and they had been afraid it might give under its weight the next time. Architecture and engineering weren’t as simple as one might believe, and they constantly ran into these little problems that required further transfiguration to solve. 

While he struggled with the correct wand movements, Molly walked out of the house, holding a towel and a sunshade. She planned to spend the whole day by the lake (previously the pond near the garden — they had transformed and filled it with conjured water), sunbathing and relaxing. He had promised to join her once he was done.

“Still at that, love?” she asked, stepping to his side and inspecting the work.

“Can’t seem to find a good angle — it won’t look good with the rest.”

“Well, we can’t have that, can we? I’m sure you’ll sort it out.” She pecked him on the lips. “Don’t take too long.”

“Don’t worry.” He slapped her swimsuit-clad butt as she turned to leave, receiving a playful grunt of fake protest.

He stood there for a few more minutes until he was satisfied with his work. The problem was that the roof he was fixing belonged to her painting loft, and the ceiling inside would also need adjustments on the expanding charms. Intent on not leaving it half-done, he went into the house to examine the room.

Molly’s atelier had changed over the years. Much more spacious now, it was filled with rows of canvases — some tiny, others enormous, reaching to the ceiling; some paintings were complete, left there for her own reference, others were half-done, abandoned in favor of newer pictures. A great, single window poured light into the whole room. That was what Harry needed to fix, because the roof now melded into the glass in a queer way.

Moving closer to wave his spell, a lonely canvas caught his attention. Obscured under the shadow of bigger ones, the painting was as tall as Harry himself. It depicted a couple. The man, dark-haired and dressed in a black tuxedo, laid a hand on the waist of his partner, while the other gently held hers. She, red-haired, was dressed in a beautiful white dress adorned with frills, and she touched his shoulder delicately as they spun and spun to music he couldn't hear. Their faces hadn’t been painted, but somehow he got the feeling they smiled. Finishing his business, he joined her outside.

The painting stayed in his mind for days. There was a reason Molly had painted that. A desire that had taken shape in her mind, Harry believed. After all those years together, was it natural that she wanted more? A new step, a new phase in their relationship?

The more he thought about it, the more he imagined himself in that painting, the more he liked the idea.

He made his decision. 

Back at the workshop, he worked the hours after she had fallen asleep, gathering useless pieces of iron and other metals he could find around the house. Transfiguring gold, especially pure gold, wasn’t easy — it was a level of transfiguration well beyond NEWTS, but, for her, he tried and tried, practicing late into the night, until finally, weeks later, he had them.

When someone has a lot of time on their hands, patience comes as second nature; one could spend months or years waiting for the perfect moment. But when your time is seemingly infinite, something interesting happens: every moment becomes perfect. Gone is the need to wait, the need to push the hours down an endless ladder. There is only the ‘now’, indistinguishable from the ‘then’.

On the day after they were finished, he found her at the atelier, sitting on a stool, back to the entrance, and contemplating an unfinished painting. He sneaked over and caught her in a hug from behind, kissing the nape of her neck. She eased into his arms, reaching up to scratch his beard.

“Hey, you,” she said.

“What are you doing?” he asked in what he hoped was an unassuming tone.

“Thinking about how to finish this. I got yellow and orange, but I think red will add too much warmth to the picture. What do you think? Maybe I could try magen — what are you doing?”

Harry had taken a knee, producing a small, velvet box from his pocket. He stared deep into her wide eyes as he opened it.

“Molly, will you marry me?”

She was silent, mouth hanging slightly open, before she jumped into his arms. 

“Yes!” she replied, holding each side of his face. There were tears in her eyes.

They made love then, right there, and wasted no time planning the event. Molly, suspiciously, already had a pretty good idea of how she wanted it to be. They agreed on each other’s tasks: Harry would prepare the stage, the infrastructure of the ceremony, and Molly would transfigure their wedding clothes.

When the day came, Harry woke up alone in their bedroom. He found a letter from her atop a neatly folded tuxedo, an emerald-colored tie, and classic, shiny black shoes. She told him to get on with the preparations and not look for her, for he would only see her again at the ceremony.

And that’s what he did. He gave the finishing touches to the wooden platform he had raised at the lake shore, arranged the candles from their house to form a path, and brought out the record player. 

When the first orange rays of the setting sun touched the waters, Harry, dressed in the clothes she left for him, lit the candles, put on a song that wasn’t quite the wedding march but felt romantic enough, and climbed the platform to wait for her. 

It was different from the weddings he remembered from movies and Aunt Petunia’s soap operas. There wasn’t any priest; the whispers of the wind on the branches of the trees were their guests; no food had been served there in decades. Still, Harry could not stop the anxious feeling rising in his gut as the front door opened. 

The air left his lungs when he actually set his eyes on her. 

Molly emerged from the house like a vision from a dream, her red hair cascading in loose waves that caught the dying light of the sun, turning strands to threads of molten gold. The wedding gown she had transfigured hugged her figure with quiet refinement. Bared shoulders and the bodice that accentuated the generous swell of her breasts and the gentle curve of her waist, flaring into a long skirt that billowed softly with each step, trailing far behind her. She clutched a bouquet of wildflowers, of vibrant reds and yellows plucked from their garden.

She stopped in front of him; on her face, the brightest smile he had ever seen. She lay down the bouquet on a nearby stool; Harry grasped her lace-covered hands.

“Relax,” she whispered. “Your hands are so stiff.”

“Sorry,” he said, easing his grip. He tried to recall the words he prepared. “Molly, we didn’t choose to be here together, and we didn’t choose who we wanted to be stuck with. But today, if I had to choose, there’s no one else I’d rather have with me. Being with you makes it easy to wake up every day, and sleeping in your arms makes me look forward to the night. I’d take a hundred or a thousand years more, as long as I’m with you. I love you.”

“Harry, you are a wonderful man, you make me laugh without any effort, and it feels like my heart is about to burst when you look at me with those eyes. There are no ‘buts’ in this story — you are the one. The one I want to hold me close. The one I want to tease me when I'm being stubborn, and the one to kiss me when I’m feeling down. You’re the one I want to spend this infinity with. I love you.”

“Do you accept me as your husband?”

“I do.” Harry brought forth the golden wedding ring he had made for her and slipped it onto her finger. “Do you take me as your wife?”

“I do.” She did the same for its mate.

They kissed and hugged and held each other as the sun finished its descent toward the horizon, and the moon and stars became the new witnesses to their union. 

After the ceremony finished, they put on their favorite records and climbed up a second platform Harry had built in front of their home. There, they danced and laughed and kissed, giddy with happiness, hearts bursting with love.

“Mrs. Potter, you are the most beautiful woman in the world.”

“I am the only woman in the world, Harry.”

“I don’t need anyone else.”

“You are so corny.”

Hours later, with the moon high in the sky, Harry picked Molly up in his arms, cradled her with effortless strength, and took her up the stairs inside the house.

He carried her across the threshold of their bedroom. Her skirt flowed in soft waves, brushing his tuxedo-clad legs with each step. She clung to him, her veil a gossamer halo framing her flushed face, her red curls spilling out in rebellious tendrils. The air was thick with the scent of fresh linens and the faint floral perfume she'd dabbed on her neck earlier.

He lowered her gently onto the bed, the mattress dipping under her as she sat up, her hands immediately reaching for him. Their lips met in a slow, lingering kiss, mouths parting as his tongue slipped in to taste her. Molly's fingers fumbled at his bow tie, tugging it loose with eager impatience, while Harry's hands found the buttons at the back of her gown. 

She broke the kiss to shrug out of the gown, letting the bodice fall away, exposing the bridal lingerie beneath — a delicate white corset that cinched her waist and lifted her breasts into a generous swell, the lace cups barely containing their fullness, translucent enough to hint at the rosy peaks beneath. The gown pooled around her hips like surrendered petals, and Harry helped her shimmy it off, his hands sliding along her thighs, feeling the stockings' silky texture clinging to her legs, held by garters that framed her hips. Molly's breath hitched as he knelt to remove her heels, his fingers brushing the arches of her feet, sending small shivers up her calves.

Now she sat before him in only the lingerie, corset accentuating her hourglass figure, the garter belt framing her wide hips, stockings sheathing her legs in sheer white, and the matching panties that clung to her mound. She had really outdone herself. The fine details of the outfit were done to perfection, transfigured with skill beyond anything he had seen. It was her wedding gift to herself — and to him.

He rose and shrugged off his jacket, her hands joining his to unbutton his shirt, revealing the lean planes of his chest, the faint trail of hair leading downward. She traced it with her fingertips, nails scraping lightly, igniting sparks along his nerves, his skin prickling under her touch. The shirt fell away, and she leaned in to kiss his abs, her lips warm and wet, tongue flicking out to taste the salt of his skin.

He stepped back to kick off his shoes and socks, then unbuckled his belt, the metallic clink echoing softly as Molly watched, her eyes dark with hunger. She reached out to help, her fingers deft on the zipper, drawing it down slowly. His trousers slid to the floor, followed by his boxers, freeing his erection. Molly's gaze lingered, her chest rising and falling quicker, her own arousal evident in the lace of her panties that darkened with moisture.

They tumbled onto the bed, Harry lay her back against the pillows, his body covering hers in a protective cage. He kissed down her neck, along her collarbone, trailing lower to her belly, feeling the subtle give of her flesh under his lips, the warmth radiating from her core. Hooking his fingers into her panties, he drew them down, the fabric peeling away from her damp folds with a sticky reluctance, revealing her pussy.

He positioned himself between her thighs, guiding his cock to her entrance, the tip nudging her folds, parting them with a slow press. 

“Do it. Make me your woman.”

He nodded. It was different this time. They both knew. With this, they would be more than two people locked in a fake world, more than a man and a woman. They’d be husband and wife.

Molly's breath caught as he entered her, the tight clasp of her channel giving way around him, warm and wet, her walls rippling in welcome spasms that gripped his length like a custom sheath. They moved together tenderly, his thrusts slow and deep, each withdrawal a teasing drag that made her whimper, each plunge filling her, the head of his cock brushing that sensitive spot inside her that arched her back. Her legs wrapped around his waist, heels digging into his back, pulling him closer, her breasts pressing against his chest, nipples scraping his skin in electric trails. Harry's hands roamed her sides, feeling the curve of her ribs expand with each gasp.

Shifting, he rolled them so she was on top, her weight a delicious pressure as she rode him, hips circling in languid swirls that stirred him within her depths. Her breasts bounced softly with each movement, heavy and hypnotic, and Harry reached up to cup them, thumbs flicking her nipples until they hardened further, the peaks sensitive and responsive. Molly leaned forward, offering them to him, and he obliged, sucking one into his mouth while kneading the other, the dual sensation making her pussy clench in waves that milked his cock.

The first climax came way too quickly. Before he could tell her, he ejaculated into her folds, pulsating and dumping the contents of his balls. But she never stopped bouncing on him, and he never got soft. 

He continued to suck her breast like a thirsty newborn. He craved more intimacy with those magnificent globes. Gently, he eased her off him, his cock slipping free, slick and shining with her essence and his semen. Molly understood, a knowing smile curving her lips as she knelt between his legs, gathering her full breasts in her hands. She leaned forward, enveloping his cock in the warm valley of her cleavage, the soft, pillowy mounds pressing together to form a tight tunnel around him.

The sensation was heavenly. Her breasts were like heated silk, yielding yet firm, the skin smooth and slightly sticky with sweat as she began to move, sliding them up and down his length. Harry's cock throbbed within the plush confines, the friction a gentle, enveloping pressure that built with each stroke, her nipples brushing his abdomen in teasing grazes. He watched, transfixed, as the head of his cock emerged from between her breasts on each upstroke, flushed and weeping precum that smeared across her skin, lubricating the glide. Molly's tongue darted out occasionally, lapping at the tip when it peeked through, the wet flick sending jolts straight to his core, her breath hot against him.

The build was slow and torturous, the soft compression of her breasts massaging every inch, veins pulsing against the smooth flesh, the warmth seeping into him like a soothing balm laced with fire. Harry's hips bucked lightly, thrusting into the channel she created, the sensation intensifying as she pressed her breasts tighter, the cleavage narrowing to grip him more firmly. His balls tightened, the pressure coiling low, and with a guttural moan, he surrendered to the second climax, his release erupting in thick ropes that painted her chest and neck, the hot spurts mingling with the sweat on her skin, her breasts continuing their rhythmic slide to milk him dry.

Panting, he pulled her up for a kiss, tasting himself faintly on her lips, his body slick and spent yet still humming with aftershocks. They shifted again, Harry spooning behind her, his softened cock nestling against her ass as he entered her from the side, one leg hooked over hers for deeper access. The angle was intimate, his thrusts gentle now, sliding into her welcoming heat with ease. His hand roamed her front, fingers circling her clit in lazy strokes, feeling it swell under his touch, the nub slick and sensitive.

Molly mewled, pushing back against him, her ass cheeks cushioning each thrust. He kissed her neck, nipping the skin lightly, feeling her pulse race beneath his lips, her breath coming in soft pants as he built her up. His free hand cupped her breast, rolling the nipple between fingers still sticky from their mingled fluids, the dual stimulation — his cock filling her in steady rhythms, his fingers dancing over her clit — pushing her toward the edge.

She came with a shuddering cry, her walls clamping down on him, the tight spasms reigniting his arousal, his cock hardening within her once more. He rolled her onto her stomach, mounting her from behind, her ass raised slightly as he plunged deeper, the new angle allowing him to hit that sweet spot with each drive, her pussy gripping him like a vice, slick and swollen. Harry's hands braced on either side of her, his body covering hers protectively, the friction intense as he thrust, feeling her quiver beneath him, her moans muffled into the pillow. She clenched deliberately, the rhythmic squeezes heightening his pleasure, the build a slow crescendo until he spilled inside her once more, the hot flood triggering her release, her pussy milking him in fluttering contractions that left them both trembling.

Exhausted, they collapsed in a tangle of limbs, breaths syncing as they held each other, the afterglow a warm cocoon in the quiet room. Harry's fingers ran across her back, feeling the subtle rise and fall of her breathing, her skin damp and flushed against his. Molly nestled closer, her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat slow down.

From then on, they were Harry and Molly Potter, husband and wife, together as one flesh, one heart, in that endless, private world.

****

Time passed, quicker and quicker, until seasons became blurry and any idea of years and months vanished from their minds. There were only they, the house, and the immediate vicinity before the barrier. They picked up and dropped more activities than they bothered to count. Gardening, song-making, literature, sculpting — the list went on. There was time for everything.

He was outside one morning, sitting on their porch, playing with a new musical instrument he put together that year. It had seven strings over two sound boxes that were supposed to resonate. 

“This is sounding a lot better, dear,” came his wife’s voice from the front door’s archway.

“Still not as I wanted,” he said. “Do you remember how we tuned that guitar?”

“You remember that? It was what, twenty winters ago?” She leaned on the balustrade, back to him. She was wearing one of those short sundresses that drove him mad.

“A bit over thirty.”

“Must be. Your memory is better than mine. You made that thing to help, if I recall.”

“The tuner. Where did I put it?” He hoped he hadn’t transfigured into another tool. 

She looked back. Her eyes called him. “For that, my love, I have no idea.”

Harry put down the instrument (it didn’t have a name yet) and rose to join his wife. He hugged from behind, and she sank back against his chest. The horizon would be a beautiful blue if not for the cloud forming in the distance, signaling a coming storm.

“Given up?” she said.

“Just taking a break so I can hump this sexy lady teasing me.”

She chuckled. “We did it this morning, you can’t possibly want to do it again already.”

“You’re seducing me. You know I can’t resist you, honey.” 

“We’re getting too old for this,” she said with a fake complaint, but her bum pushed back against his pelvis. His hands traveled under her skirt and pulled down her underwear. In a second, he was inside her.

That was their little joke: pretend they were old people living out their retirement in the quiet countryside. In truth, they hadn’t aged a day since it all began. Like vampires, they alone remained unchanging, while even the wood of the fences showed its age, and the trees grew high and thick. A blessing that had made his paradise possible.

“What will you do today?” he asked when they were done. 

“I don’t know. I might pick up the brush again, it’s been a while.”

“Don’t stay late again if you do,” he said. She smiled at his worry and pecked him on the lips. 

Harry returned to his instrument after she stepped back inside. For a couple more hours, he worked on it, but it was no use; he really needed the tuner. He entered the house again, intending to find it. 

There remained no traces that their home had once been another house, called The Burrow (a word almost forgotten, kept in the recesses of Harry’s mind). It was changed and adapted many times to their needs, rooms added and removed, and the architecture redesigned as they wished. No kitchen anymore — for they didn’t need to eat — the living room had become a massive lounge of comfortable couches and chairs. Their bedroom was still on the first floor, and her atelier (which had been a studio and other rooms at some point or another) was on the second. On the floors above was an assortment of rooms, among them their enormous bathroom and study, and others that had seen little use over the years, like the warehouse, where they kept old things Harry insisted he might need again someday. 

And the warehouse was his destination then. Inside were towers of cardboard boxes, their edges softened by age and sagging under the weight of their own decay, teetering precariously in uneven stacks. Some were labeled with faded ink — Fragile, Books, Misc. — while others bore no mark, their contents a mystery swallowed by the passage of decades. Cobwebs draped like tattered curtains across corners, clinging to rusted metal shelves, warped wooden trunks, and tangled heaps of old tools. 

Harry protected his nose from the musty breath of dust as best as he could and set to rummage through the boxes and piles of old things. He was in the tenth box when he finally found it. The small metallic tuner with its parallel sticks did not gleam amidst the grit and appeared stuck between two large, askew magic tomes he had written at some point. He grabbed it and pulled hard until he got it free. 

Something else came with it, falling to the floor, clinking next to his feet. Frowning, Harry lowered to pick it up. 

It was a round piece of metal, covered on one side by glass, emitting a very faint tick-tock on repeat. A crack ran across its surface, and inside he saw a few numbers: 811176. 

Harry slumped down, back against the boxes, and stared at it for a long time. It had taken him a moment, but he at last recognized the Fake-Time Clock. The rightmost number turned before his eyes, moving an hour up. 

“Harry!” his wife’s voice called suddenly from downstairs. “Can you come here? I need your help with a canvas! Please, love!”

He rose to his feet and, sparing the clock a last glance, returned it to the box and closed its lid.

****

Harry sat at the edge of the couch in the living room, his legs spread wide in lazy invitation, the flickering glow of the massive fireplace casting dancing shadows across his bare skin. He could see through the massive panoramic window the snow swirling in thick, silent flurries, blanketing the afternoon of their small world in a hushed white veil, but within, the hearth's warmth enveloped him, chasing away the chill. 

His cock stood rigid, veins pulsing faintly along its length, the tip flushed and glistening with anticipation as Molly approached, still all curves, still as beautiful as the day he fell in love with her. He would never get tired of her, his Molly. His woman, as she loved to be called.

She turned her back to him, glancing over her shoulder with a teasing smile that crinkled the corners of her eyes, her auburn curls cascading like a fiery waterfall down her back. Straddling his thighs in reverse, she positioned herself above him, her plump ass cheeks parting slightly to reveal the damp, rosy folds of her sex. Harry's hands found her hips, fingers sinking into the flesh, guiding her as she lowered herself, the slick heat of her entrance brushing his cockhead.

With a slow, breathy descent, she impaled herself, her folds parting like silken petals, enveloping him in a tight embrace, her inner walls fluttering as she took him fully, still tight despite the hundreds — thousands — of times it had taken him.

Molly arched her back, her ass pressing flush against his groin, rising with tantalizing slowness, the impact a wet, resonant slap that reverberated through her body, her breasts heaving unseen but felt in the subtle tremors that coursed through her frame.

The rhythm built, her hips undulating in fluid circles, grinding him deeper into her depths where her channel spasmed greedily, the friction a building inferno that ignited every vein and nerve along his shaft. From behind, Harry watched the mesmerizing play — her ass cheeks bouncing with each drop, dimpling at the base where they met his pelvis, her pussy lips stretched taut around him, glistening with their mingled fluids that trickled down to soak his balls in warm, sticky trails. His hands roamed upward, palming the sway of her waist and back, fingers tracing the sweat-slicked curve of her spine as she rode him harder, her moans rising in pitch, breathy and unrestrained.

Sweat beaded on their skin, the hearth's heat amplifying the flush that spread across her body, turning her pale expanse a rosy glow as her inner muscles clenched with increasing fervor, milking him in rhythmic pulses. The pressure coiled low in his belly, a tightening knot of bliss as her pussy contracted wildly, the slick, unyielding grip pushing him to the edge. 

“Honey, I’m going to cum,” he warned her.

She quickened her pace, and the flesh of her legs and ass slapped against his in lewd noises. With a groan, Harry surrendered, his hips bucking upward. He grabbed her breasts to hold her as he erupted inside, hot spurts of seed flooding her depths in throbbing waves, drawing every drop until he was spent, their bodies locked in shuddering union.

Later, they lay together on the couch under a warm blanket, enjoying each other’s presence as well as the peace of the moment.

“I love you. I’ll love you forever,” Molly said, breaking the silence.

“I love you too, but where’s that coming from?”

“Can’t I just say that?” He opened his mouth to reply. “I’m teasing you, dear. I’m just thinking — I wish we could have had children.”

He kissed her shoulder affectionately. “We’ve talked about this. It’s better that we can’t.”

“I know, but I think I’d have loved them so much.”

“There’s nothing for them here, Molly.”

“There’s us.” She sighed deeply. “I’m not arguing with you, Harry, I know it’s impossible. I only want to voice it out.”

“Thanks for that, honey,” he said. “I’d have loved them too.”

“I’d want at least seven.”

“Seven?!” He laughed.

She shrugged. “It’s a good number.”

Harry didn’t reply to that. Internally, he knew he would give her as many as she wanted, if he could. He would give her everything.

“It’s okay,” she said. “We still have each other, love. We’ll always have each other.”

A few more minutes of comfortable silence, she spoke again:

“What did we use to call this month?”

“Do you mean the winter months?” His wife nodded. Harry thought for a minute. “There were more than one… There was… November, I think, and… hmmm… they had similar names…”

“Didn’t we have something to track them?”

“Yes… a calendar. I saw one in that room upstairs some time ago. I’ll go get it,” he said, rising.

“Dear, it’s fine, it was just a question,” Molly said, touching his arm to stop him.

“No, I’m curious now too. It’ll be just a minute, I’ll be right back.” He pecked her lips. “Love you.”

He started for the stairs, but, suddenly, was afflicted by a weird sensation, a shiver that went through his whole body, a wave that left goosebumps on his skin. His vision blurred and darkened, and a sharp pain lanced through his head. Somehow, he had fallen to the ground, and something had fallen on top of him, judging from the weight on his chest. He pushed it off him and scratched his hurting skull.

“Mum! Harry!” Voices spoke all around him, and strong arms pulled him up. 

He opened his eyes and saw shades of white and red. A moment later, hands eased his glasses into place, and Harry stared at the long, slightly freckled face of a red-haired boy.

“Harry? Are you okay?” the boy said. “He looks like I just caught him with his pants down. I think he has a concussion, George.”

There was another boy in the room, who looked almost exactly like the one next to him. This other boy was kneeling next to a portly woman sitting on the floor.

“Mum’s out of it too, Fred,” the other boy said.

The boy next to him, Fred, sat him down on a chair and knelt to pick something off the ground.

He grunted. “Bloody hell, it’s broken.”

“No way, let me see,” George left the woman reclining against the wall and took whatever Fred had in his hands. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Fred sighed. “Doesn’t look like it activated — it’s marking all zeroes.” He tapped Harry on the back, chuckling. “You’re one lucky bloke, Harry. You’d be stuck there for a very long time.”

As if in a dream, Harry looked around: at the boys, at the bedroom they were in, at the unknown middle-aged woman sitting on the ground. She was rubbing a spot on her head when she looked up.

Their eyes met, and Harry understood. He gave her a polite, blank smile.

“Hi, Mrs. Weasley.”