Percy had always been Molly’s favourite son.


She’d tried to hide it when they were little, to not show a preference in front of her other kids, but truthfully, it was never necessary. Her sons were all so different, Bill with his free spirit and long hair, and yet the responsible one. Charlie, all tough and cold, so much like her brother Fabian. Fred and George, so uncaring on the outside, so distant to her motherly ministrations, and yet so eager to please her. And Ron, a jumble of words, feelings and ideas that never seemed to find a proper course until he went to Hogwarts.


Of all of them, Percy had been the only one who’d always come to her. The only one who seemed to want her constant attention. The only one who’d sit by her side as she cooked and listened to her talk. She could never be sure of all the things she’d said to Percy afterwards, because it was so nice to have a captive audience that she kept talking for longer than she really needed to.


He was also the only one who followed the rules. Bill seemed to think being the oldest one meant he was above rules, and although he usually complied with most of them, he seemed to do it just because he agreed on the rules, not because he respected them. Charlie didn’t say much, and like Bill, sometimes behaved like he was above the rules, but mostly he just didn’t seem to care.


Fred and George lived to break her rules, a fact that had caused her a lot of consternation when they were little and she was the only one responsible for their care, and twice as much when they went off to Hogwarts and she had to wonder what people would say about their upbringing.


Ron had always been a quiet, sometimes whiny, child who’d seemed in awe of his older brothers and had always tried to model himself more after Fred and George than the more responsible adults in the house.


She tried not to play favorites, but Percy had always been hers.


The fact had been all but cemented after Ginny’s birth. She’d been tired and irritable, but as happy as she’d felt in quite a while, when her kids finally came into her room to say hello to their baby sister.


Bill had been in awe, the prototypical older brother who would only let her go so Charlie could have a chance to kiss her small forehead in that scruffy way of his. Fred and George had started planning how to take advantage of the situation right away, and Ron, who’d been too little to process anything, had apparently decided she was a new toy.


Percy, on the other hand had taken one look and Ginny and then had come to sit beside her stoically, as if he were in charge of making sure everything was all right, not only with his new sister, but with her too. That had always been the case with Percy, and it looked so out of place for a five-year old boy that her heart went out to him.


For the longest time after that, he would be the one to make sure Ginny was eating properly, finished her homework and brushed her teeth. He wasn’t her favorite brother, not by a long shot, but he was Molly’s favorite without a doubt, always so attentive and responsible. Someone you could depend on.


Until you couldn’t.


Until he’d moved away from home, and returned her sweater, and he didn’t even turn up when Arthur was in the hospital, and she started to think that maybe she’d read him wrong all along. Maybe her one lapse in parenting hadn’t been that she was too lenient with Fred and George, but that she was too permissive with Percy. That she let him grow up on his own, because she thought he was very good at it.


She cried herself to sleep every night since he returned her sweater. She’d never suffered from love before, had never been dumped, and yet she couldn’t understand a greater suffering than being scorned by her own son.


Arthur quickly passed from sadness to anger. Ginny couldn’t even hear the name mentioned without going into a rant. Bill and Charlie tried to approach him, separately, only to be rebuffed, and they maintained their careful neutrality on the subject, saying nothing either way. Fred and George spent nights discussing all the ways they could make his life miserable.


She cried herself to sleep and hoped that she could have her boy back, her family complete once again. And with every day that passed she went on with her life, trying not to stare at the familiar clock that told her that, for now, her family, though in danger, was still complete.


When it came time to face the battle, that final battle, she went into it with her heart clenched with fear and the image of Percy in her heart, in case she never saw him again. And when he was suddenly there, in the Room of Requirement, looking frantic and so much like a little boy, she hardly heard his humorous exchange with Fred, all she wanted was to hold him close and never let him go.


Later, her heart torn, she didn’t think of him as her favourite, not anymore. Fred was gone, and Fred would always be her favourite. In her grief there wasn’t a place for anything else, not even for the little boy who’d once sat beside her ready to defend her against the world, and today, stood close to her, his warm hand firmly clasping her as they said one final goodbye.


He wouldn’t leave her side afterwards, and she didn’t even have the heart to be glad as he made her a hot tea and sat staring at the window of her room, giving her as much privacy as he could without actually leaving her alone.


“Did he …was it painful?” she asked suddenly, and he understood exactly what she was asking.


“No. It was all over before he had time to realize what was going on. I made a joke, and he was laughing, maybe because he didn’t realize that I knew what a joke was, and then it was over.”


Brown eyes, so like hers, so like Fred’s, and she wanted to cry out, but he was sitting there, her boy once again, and she felt comforted in a way. She’d lost one son, not two.


And there was another wedding, and grandkids, and she felt herself beginning to heal, slowly, but surely. Bill and his now crooked grin, and sweet, beautiful Victoire smiling, and Charlie, Uncle Charlie with Dominique. And Ron and Hermione holding hands in the garden, smiling, joking. Her baby girl standing in Harry’s embrace.


Percy getting married, at last.


Through it all, he’d stayed by her. Even when he’d brought home a girl, mere days after the war was over, there was no talk of marriage, no pretense of seriousness, not until a long time had passed, and she felt a little disappointed with each day.


But she put on a smile, and persevered, and when he came to her, just after Dominique was born and announced that he was getting married she didn’t ask why it had taken him so long, she just embraced him and tried to recapture that feeling she’d had when he was a little boy who only had eyes for her.


And then, when she’d seen his eyes shine brightly on his wedding day, and then a year later, when he announced that she was going to be a grandmother again, she felt like she loved him with every ounce the love she’d felt for him that first day as she held him in her arms.


It was not until later, on the day when he himself discovered the joy of having a child that she finally realized that he’d loved her just as much if not more, all his life, and that, as much credit as she’d always given him, she’d never thought enough of him.


He’d come out of his room, hours after he’d gone in, a crying bundle in his arms, and he’d been instantly surrounded, George’s congratulatory messages sparkling in the background. Harry, strangely enough, had been the first to ask if he was looking at his new niece or nephew, and she almost missed the look that went on between Harry and Ginny, so focused was she on Percy’s words.


“It’s a girl,” he declared, in his loud, pompous voice, and everyone laughed. “A girl,” he repeated, and she was so close to him she could touch him, so she didn’t miss the warmth in his voice as he continued. “Molly,” he whispered softly. “Her name is Molly.”


She gasped and started hiccupping, loudly. There were tears running down her cheeks, and she couldn’t even catch her breath. Something was happening, and Percy was handing his newborn daughter to someone else, she couldn’t see who, and he was hugging his mother fiercely, like he hadn’t done since he was eleven and leaving for Hogwarts, and he was whispering in her ear something that broke her heart and mended it all over again.


“I’m sorry it took me a while to sort everything out, Mum. I just wanted to make sure you were all right before going ahead with my life.”


She nodded, too overcome with emotion to speak. Instead she held tightly onto the son she once thought she’d lost, and who’d ended up being her best boy, after all.


The End