In Essence Divided

Chapter 8

Molly sighed heavily. She had bustled everyone upstairs for the night and now she was cleaning the kitchen. All of the children had been very upset with the news of Rosemerta. Molly agreed, it was sad. Why? All these senseless crimes! And the children now taking this active stance; she knew it was only a matter of time before someone else got hurt in the process. She felt like she was spending all of her time holding her breath, trying to keep a straight face, hoping that it wasn’t going to be one of her children. Again.

Wait, she corrected herself. They were no longer children. They were adults now. Ron and Harry had been out for two years, and Hermione followed after a year. Ginny’s time was fast approaching and then she felt as though she would have no more children. They will all be grown at that point, free to do as they wished, go where they wished. And she, as their mother, would have no say anymore.

That was a foolish thought, she knew it, but something about being able to push her children behind her and fight made her feel safer. She was like a mother hen, she prided herself and Arthur on being able to take care of their children as well as they had through the tough years. As they got older, one by one, she felt more and more vulnerable. No longer could she tell her brood not to worry, not to fight, because she knew in her heart that they would never give up. And after Fred and George, it seemed that all her children’s fates had been sealed.

Fred and George. It didn’t happen to both of them, it had happened to George. But so quick was everyone to blurt out FrednGeorge. There was no hesitation anymore. No distinction between the two. Even Molly, she was their mother for goodness sake! Even she couldn’t tell them apart at times. They had become one person, tragically ripped into two at conception, but still feeling the other like a phantom limb. They were the same person. She chided herself for the times she had slipped over the years, and wondered if that was somehow her fault. How could she have known? Arthur tried to reassure her with his furtive looks over the dinner table, but there was something naggling at the back of her head.

Molly sighed again as she put the kitchen into order and sat down with a cup of tea laced with a calming draught. There was nothing that she could do and worrying wasn’t going to help anything. For now, alone in the kitchen, she could have a moment to herself to savor the truth. A bitter pill it was. She sipped her draught and leaned into the back of the chair and just let everything wash over her. It was less difficult this way, dealing with things. She always told her kids not to struggle when it was time for their medicine, and this was something she had to take.

Her boys were not boys, they were men. She knew this, but a part of her just couldn’t wrap her head around it. Bill, Charlie, Fred, George and Ron. And they had become enmeshed into this battle against Voldemort just as surely as their father had. She knew the reasons. They were stark in her face everyday. They couldn’t back away from something they knew to be right. They would never let this go without a fight. And she feared that her boys were losing sight of those reasons. Arthur did all that he did with the Order because he knew that it was for the good of everyone. There was no other reason that could sway him. Had he been offered a basket of much-needed galleons, he would refuse it and keep fighting the good fight.
Bill and Charlie had followed suite. They worked their jobs, and a scattered lot her family had become, with all their different professions. One could never tell where they would all be at any given time. But they found the time to take on whatever it was that Dumbledore could throw their way, and they did it proudly and with no complaint. She looked on them with a sense of pride, but at the same time, their dead bodies flashed before her eyes on the floor. Always she saw their bodies clearly in her mind, and she never could escape the dreams she had about them dying for this cause.

A tear escaped her eye and traced the accumulating crow’s feet around her eyes.

And Fred and George, bless them, had followed their dreams and done what they had set out to do. They had opened their shop and did quite well. Nothing made her prouder than knowing that they had overcome their station in life and gone on to do well. She was so proud of them that her heart swelled when she thought of it, no matter how much she disapproved of some of their products. She always made it seem like a bad thing that they were doing, but now down to the bare bones, she would have chosen this profession over what they were on to do now anyway.

Ron had followed along with Harry. Molly knew that he would have. Since the first day on the train, she had known Ron had found a life-long friend. She was happy that her last son had overcome his shyness and took the chance at deepening their friendship. Harry was a good friend to Ron over the years, getting him past those years that she knew were going to be rough for her son. Molly cared for Harry as she would a son, and she had feared for the two of them the most. She always thought that it would be Ron she was going to be visiting in the hospital. She dreaded getting the owl that would tell her that her youngest boy had fallen at the hands of some Death Eater or some battle.

Ginny was safely tucked away at Hogwarts. Where she was safe under Dumbledore’s watch. Molly remembered the confusion that had ensued after Dumbledore fell from the tower. Ginny had come home with her that night, avoiding the train with Harry. Something had happened between the two of them, but she did press her for details, Ginny would talk to her when she was ready. Molly knew that her daughter had a steel reserve, and she relied on her daughter equally as they waited out the days following Dumbledore’s death. And the weeks turned into months. And no word had come to them. Those had been hard days.

Molly took a moment to reflect on the confusion that followed in the next months. She had never reflected back on it, and here alone at Grimmauld Place at three in the morning, she really thought about it. She sipped more of the calming draught and went back to her musings.

Dumbledore had fooled them all. She almost laughed at the obviousness of it. A phoenix. A damn phoenix. Why was it that none of them had thought on it? Months of waiting, teaching Ginny herself and crying herself to sleep everynight, and for nothing. She felt another tear slide down her face and she shoved it away. After all the precautions that You-Know-Who had taken, they had all been fools to think that Dumbledore had not done the same. All the work he did with Nicolas Flamel? She gave a small chuckle through her tears at the obviousness of it.

It had happened so suddenly. Arthur had tried to have a talk with Harry about the things he said to Scrimgeour, but Harry had turned a deaf ear. In his quest to finish the task that he and Dumbledore had started, Harry had taken a disreguard to certain laws that the Ministry enforced. It was not long before Harry himself was taken into custody by the Ministry. Molly remembered the dread she felt as she walked Harry to the basement of the Ministry. His manacles clanged as she walked at his side, his face hardened to stone and a defiant line etched his jaw. Arthur had stood beside her, the only two that would side with Harry for the trial. No one else wanted to be under the Ministry’s scrutiny.

And then the flash.

It was like nothing Molly had ever seen. And pandemonium ensued. People rushed about and conjured water, thinking that there was a fire. People were trampled as they rushed for the door, and Harry was thrown closer to the red inferno in the middle of the room. He faced it with the same hard look he had as they walked into the room. There was no fear left in the boy, none of that boyish wonder he had about things when Molly first met him. There was a cold stare. Nothing more.

“Everyone, please, be seated!” A soft voice exclaimed excitedly from the center of the room. But Molly had known that soft voice. She would know it anywhere. And her tears had begun. And they wouldn’t stop. Everyone froze at the voice. It was unearthly.

Before them stood Dumbledore.

Dressed in brilliant red robes he looked at those who had stopped to gawk. As the room caught sight of him, all movement had ceased. Time stood still for a moment as he made his way to the seat beside Rufus. He seated himself with the regality of a king, and yet his face held the humility of a peasant.

“Well, continue! Don’t dally on my behalf.” Dumbledore looked at Harry, who’s expression had not changed a bit. Everyone else looked as though they had seen a ghost, and many of them probably assumed that they had. Leave it to Dumbledore to be so nonchalant about his own death.

Needless to say, Harry was released that night.

But Molly still had not received enough answers to her questions. Why was Dumbledore able to come back and she had to spend all the hours of all her days worrying about her family being killed? With no hope of them ever returning? And why was she the only one that was angry about it? Molly was not a bitter person, but this was proving to be too much for her to handle, she hated the fear. The terror of sleepless nights was starting to get to her. How could he come back as he had, answering no questions and not share his secrets? Why couldn’t she have the security of knowing that her own family could do the same if they needed to?

And now it was intensified as she realized with a start that Fred and George had changed. They were going to fight as surely as Dumbledore had, Arthur, their brothers, and all the Order before them. But there was no saving grace for them. None at all. If they were killed, they were gone. Nothing would ever make them appear in a cloud of crimson smoke, reincarnated by the ash. They would be dust.

Another tear escaped.