I've been AWOL from writing for over a month. Tuckered out, actually. But the past few days have seen the return of my inspiration. Here's a one shot offering for Halloween.

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It wasn't supposed to happen like this. War should finish with the bad guys losing. Victories should be celebrated by the light. And then...a pretty bow to tie the package. A happily ever after.

The End.

The defeat of darkness should not have given birth to chaos.

Voldemort had been killed. Harry had lived up to the prophecy. The Chosen One. The Boy Who Lived.

Until he didn't anymore.

He was the first. The week following the last battle, he seemed fine. Staying at the Burrow, he'd consoled the family after Fred was buried. Offered to degnome the garden. Helped George reopen the joke shop. In short, everything had gone as normally as one could hope for life after a war until the day came for Harry to speak before the Wizengamot at the trials of the former death eaters. Molly had insisted on going with him as parental support. She eagerly watched the proceedings until the time came for Harry to give witness to the crimes committed by Rodolphus Lestrange. Listening to Harry recite the various atrocities carried out by this wizard, Molly grew increasingly agitated. A murderous rage overtook her features once they led Lestrange away, condemned to the Kiss, thanks in part to the testimony of the Saviour of the Wizarding World. No one bothered to ask why Molly seemed so angry.

The desire for vengeance was common after combat.

The next day, Harry complained of headaches. The day after that, body aches. Everyone assumed he was coming down with a virus of some kind. Harry downed vial after vial of Pepper-up. But the third day found him dead. Ron had gone into his bedroom to find his best friend thrashing about on the wooden floor, moaning in agony.

He'd been rushed to St. Mungo's, but the doctors there could find no indicator of illness, no residual trace of a curse obtained from the final battle.

Two hours later and Harry was gone.

The news exploded across London. Kingsley Shacklebolt, the newly appointed Minister of Magic was seen crying, taking off his kufi to cover his face, hiding his profound grief. Hermione and Ron were inconsolable.

Strangely, Molly Weasley took the news in stride. She handled the press with tact. Made the funeral arrangements. Prepared meals for those who'd come to grieve. But if anyone had bothered to watch her, they would have seen a disturbing sight. A small half-smile could be seen playing about her mouth periodically. Scuttling about the kitchen, she peeled potatoes by hand, stopping every once in a while to muffle a chuckle.

It would not do for anyone to hear her laugh.

Conversely, further away in Wiltshire, Narcissa Malfoy was heartbroken when she heard the news about Harry. Draco stared at his mother in shock. He would have understood it if she'd cried at his father's sentencing. There, she'd stood straight and solemn. At the time, he'd been proud of her. She'd acted like a pureblood. A queen in all her strength and regalness.

But this….sobbing her heart out at the death of Potter? It wasn't as if Draco had no feelings; he felt badly for his former enemy. To be taken out just as life had promise again seemed grossly unfair. But he wasn't about to tear his hair out and go about the manor wailing like a banshee. Or hugging tightly anyone who might enter a room. Malfoys did not squeeze.

It was painfully obvious to him what was transpiring; his mother was finally losing the plot.

000

Two months later, Draco rescinded his earlier sentiments. Tears had become the pattern, the norm for all magical folk doomed to live beyond the war.

After Harry, the second wizard to die was Arthur Weasley. Thankfully, his suffering had been slight. One gasp, one shudder, and the dear man was done for. After Arthur, Ron Weasley was next to be affected by this strange condition. But with Ron, the symptoms seemed magnified. As if the curse or blight or whatever it was seemed especially determined to cause the youngest male Weasley maximum suffering. No one guessed he was being tempered….twisted. To the astonishment of nearly everyone, he didn't die.

His family lived to rue it.

With Ron, the curse left him….changed. The fun-loving, happy-going Ron was gone. In his place, a more selfish Ron surfaced. A Ron intent on personal fame. Indulgent pleasure. At times, a manic gleam could be seen shining from his eyes. He sometimes could be heard chuckling darkly. His family thought Harry's death and his own sickness had driven him over the edge. They were half right.

Molly spoiled and coddled him and was inordinately pleased.

It was nice to have a son she could be proud of. One just like his mummy.

George and Ginny were left unaffected. And ignored. They eventually moved out of the Burrow and into a flat of their own. Bill, Charlie and Percy quit visiting their widowed mother. The Burrow no longer felt like home. It had become alien. Sinister.

Thankfully, Hermione remained safe. After Harry's death, she'd gone to Australia in search of her parents.

But the same could not be said for others. Andromeda Tonks, Horace Slughorn, Minerva McGonagall, Neville Longbottom….they all had fallen victim to the mystery illness.

One month after the war, a name had been given for the curse that had wiped out more of the Order than had the Battle of Hogwarts. It was dubbed, "Voldemort's Revenge."

But there were anomalies to its casualties. Lucius Malfoy had been taken from Azkaban, having violent seizures. Frothing at the mouth, he'd barely made it to St. Mungo's before his limbs were stilled in eternal silence.

Fenrir Greyback died gruesomely. He'd been in the middle of a tortuous seizure while in werewolf form. Other weres, sensing his weakness, took advantage of his helpless state. When they were through, there was little left of the beast who had been such a terror during the Dark Lord's reign. Several snatchers and sympathizers to Voldemort's ideology also succumbed to the new death.

The days grew long as did the shadows from this silent specter. Healers worked double shifts trying to find a cure.

While all along, Molly Weasley kept to her home. Tended her garden. And stirred a hidden cauldron where strange herbs and even stranger spells kept its contents bubbling day and night.

No one ever suspected. Her new body gave her back the strength she'd lost in prison. She didn't go off the deep end anymore. With her new control, she was now able to choose discreetly. Cover her tracks. In time, Molly encouraged her baby boy to become a mortician. She kept him supplied with clients.

Together, they made quite a comfortable living.

000

It had been a safety precaution.

And parting punishment from Tom Riddle himself.

The master of hiding in skins not his own, he'd swapped the wrappers between his most disappointing death eater's wife, Narcissa Malfoy and his best lieutenant, Bellatrix Lestrange. He knew Bella would be a prime target in battle; Lucius' spineless wife would not. Keeping Bella alive would strengthen his own chance of surviving. Being sisters should have made the transfer effortless. Their DNA was from the same source. But it had not been an easy thing.

He'd frowned, confused.

He'd not lived long enough afterward to discover why.

A third party had been involved.

After losing Fred, Molly Weasley was livid with rage and grief. Common sense left her. The Prewett temper flamed with a wild desire for retribution. She was not going to suffer the loss of another child. She would strike her enemy from inside it's ranks. On a spur of the moment whim, she'd determined to call forth an ancient incantation. One that would enable her to swap identities with Narcissa. It was a dark spell, but she told herself that desperate times called for desperate measures. It was a bizarre coincidence that she timed it just as Voldemort was performing his own little switcheroo. Molly had done it in a blaze of righteous zeal. She hadn't expected to live through the night. She'd planned to go out with all wands hexing.

For once the spell was done, it could not be undone.

It was Molly, under the disguise of Narcissa, who bravely lied to Voldemort about Harry.

It was Molly who took out a number of the snatchers before they were able to harm any of the students. It was Molly who blinded three of the four giants terrorizing Hogwarts.

It was Molly who watched in astonishment when her doppelganger killed Bellatrix, not knowing it was Narcissa who had been the one murdered by her sister. Poor Bellatrix, she'd not known exactly whom she'd killed…..but then she'd shrugged and thought no more of it.

It was also Molly who'd eventually led Draco away from battle. Good-hearted woman that she was, she thought she owed Narcissa that at least.

But she had not counted the cost of staying alive.

She had not considered that the decision to avenge her family would be the catalyst to her losing them.

Anger was just as poor a state to make choices as was fear, she learned too late.

Molly, as Narcissa, eventually recovered from her losses, although she would be forced to hide the grief that she would forever afterward carry. So, she did what she could as an atonement for her wrongs.

She worked hard with Draco to make him a better man. Without the constant presence of his father, she succeeded. She worked on herself as well. The formerly loud and boisterous witch remembered her roots. Narcissa's pedigree was no higher than hers. Her family had been one of the sacred twenty-eight, too.

She pushed for changes within the society circles she now found herself in. Gave generously to charities. People thought Narcissa Malfoy had repented. The former ice queen had finally melted, caused no doubt by her family's involvement in the war.

Molly didn't try to correct them. It was far better than them knowing the truth.

When Hermione finally made it back to England, parents in tow, Molly encouraged a friendship between her and Draco, if only to be able to see the young witch she'd grown to love. Before long, Draco and Hermione began to date. When the Grangers finally met Draco's mother, they were surprised to form such a quick friendship with her.

"It's like I already know her," Jean whispered to her husband.

When Draco and Hermione finally married, Molly cried. At least one of her wishes had come true. The daughter of her heart was now a daughter in fact. And when Hermione reconnected with Ginny, the youngest Weasley found a new mother in Narcissa. She encouraged Ginny to bring her family over for tea, then dinners. It wasn't long before a Weasley could be found at the manor at any given time or day. They all (with the exception of Ron) adored Narcissa. Malfoy Manor soon became their home away from home. Draco now had the large family he'd always wanted. The manor from that time forward emitted a light that was, if anyone had bothered to notice, eerily similar to the one that used to shine at the Burrow.

As for the house elves, they practically worshipped their Mistress, even though they had to continually shoo her out of the kitchens; they also could never get her out of the practice of gifting them with hand-knitted, knobby sweaters for birthdays and Christmas.

000

AN: This was inspired by all the dramione stories that depict Molly in a less than favorable light while showcasing Narcissa having a hidden heart of gold. My crazy imagination came up with this as the reason why.

Molly's body chemistry gave Bellatrix back her sanity. That was how she was able to rationally cope with the details of Harry's death. But she was still wicked. She'd detected a trace of the same selfish disdain in Ron that was in her and decided to bring it out rather than kill him. It worked.