FicWad

Write a two-roll essay explaining why Muggles took such a long time to invent the automobile. Use at least three examples not included in books studied in class.

Molly Prewett copied the assignment bitterly, giving the final 's' an angry flourish. It was written beneath another, carefully scripted, even more flourished passage:

Mr. Arthur Weasley, to Miss Molly Prewett, at sunset, on this Monday, August First...

Has to be on the first or the last of the month, Molly thought again vaguely. Arthur was a dear, but a bit clueless and bit more forgetful. Their anniversary had to be nice and easy... and August was sunny and cheerful.

Unlike this particularly rainy November. Molly could finally feel herself cracking. Three years of Muggle Studies. Three years of automobiles, refrigerators and all other manner of nonsense. Three years of staring at the back of Arthur Weasley's freckled neck and his messily parted red hair. Three years of her brothers mocking her, bewitching her only photograph of Arthur ("No, no, I'm getting pictures of all the Gryffindors in our year. Mum is curious!") to duck under the frame every time she looked at him...

She stuffed the stupid Muggle Studies book in her bag. Tucked her brand-new eagle quill into her robes. Began the trek back to Gryffindor Tower. Smoothed her hair, though little good it would do her. The rain outside destroyed the red, fluffy mass of curls she spent hours on with little fanfare on her way to Herbology this morning...

Though Arthur immediately got his Transfiguration book out to shield her from the drops, she thought dreamily...

Her and every other girl in the class.

Not that Molly was bitter.

Arthur was nice. Kind. Sweet. Adorable, really, with his wide, innocent eyes made all the more so by his glasses' thick lenses. He cared very deeply about things. Anything. All things.

And he was darling when he was preoccupied by something he liked. Last year, that ridiculous Muggle Studies class assigned them a project to be completed in pairs. By some luck, Arthur and Molly were partners. The assignment was to build (without magic) a model of a typical British Muggles' bank.

Nearly every other student Molly knew, Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw and even a stray Hufflepuff here and there, cheated on that project. They conjured detailed pieces, magicked them together and generally defeated the entire point of the assignment, as students are wont to do.

But Arthur insisted they complete the assignment as it had been assigned, not only because it was what the teacher intended but because it would be fun.

"Pass the glue, please, Molly-whoops, it's over there by Richardson-no, don't use the Summoning Charm!" he said in a hurry. "Muggles, poor things, couldn't use a Summoning Charm to get the glu-oops, might need a bit more than glue to fix that..."

In the end, they got full marks not because their project was good (it looked like a miniature bank, all right; a miniature bank trampled by a dragon and then charbroiled for good measure) but because Professor Hotchkiss could find no traces of magic within it.

"Now see here!" he'd roared at the class, angry that every last pupil (except Molly and Arthur) disregarded instructions. "The point of this lesson was not to look at a Muggle bank. You can do that in any book!" Here he thumped the textbook on his desk for emphasis.

"The point, class, is to see how a Muggle has to go about these kinds of things. To look and to see are two very different disciplines. Class DISMISSED!"

Ever since, Molly thought angrily, glaring at the parchment poking through a tear in her bag, Hotchkiss had been giving more homework than should be legal. Two rolls of parchment before the week was out? It was unheard of...

Molly reached the Fat Lady's portrait, snapped the password ("Mandragora leaves!") and received a haughty "Well, I never!" as the portrait hole opened to admit her.

She was about to stalk off into her dormitory, throw her bag onto her comfortable four-poster and ransack the library for books about automobiles. Molly's bag was slipping off her shoulder even then. Her left foot was in the air, pointed towards the staircase.

And there was a hand on her shoulder, and a stammering voice asking, "Er, Prewett?"

Molly spun around, smoothed her hair again compulsively. She had to fight not to fan herself; she could feel her neck burning with blazing red blush.

"Well... I was wondering, you see... I seem to have misplaced my Muggle Studies textbook, and... that essay..." He fidgeted with his collar and now Molly had to fight not to smooth his rumpled hair or straighten his glasses.

"I'll never be able to write it without it!" Arthur finished suddenly, almost in a shout. Molly's brother Gideon glanced up from his own homework near the fireplace, and Molly willed him to keep his big mouth shut for once in his life. Maybe he heard her, because he only exchanged smirks with Fabian before bending busily back over his parchment.

Arthur, lucky dear, didn't notice Molly's brothers or otherwise he would probably be even more flustered.

"I mean, won't be able to write the book without the essay-er, essay without the book, so, er... I wondered--"

"Arthur," Molly interrupted, feeling giddy, despite her severe tone. "We can't use any examples from the textbook."

"Oh-er, right..." He turned around very quickly. "Suppose I'll be going, then..."

Molly snatched his arm and linked it with hers. She felt like she had been hit with a colossal Cheering Charm and showed it by smiling her most charming smile.

"Arthur," she said breathlessly, "suppose we go to the library? To work on the essay?"

"The essay?" he echoed. "Ah. Yes. Of course... erm. Lead the way?" He gestured towards the portrait hole with his free arm.

And quietly thanking whoever would listen for those magical, magical automobiles, Molly did.


Sunset on Monday, August 1, 1983 is my own parents' anniversary, chosen for the very logic Molly uses here.