Summer IV - The Weasleys Go to War
Molly was a Prewett before she was a Weasley. When her brothers said, "Molly, there's a war on, can you help us," she'd asked them where they wanted her to sign. It wasn't just about doing something with her magic. It was about everything, and change, and the world, and figuring out where to tell Auntie Muriel to stuff it. Arthur was more hesitant. "After the wedding," he said, and Molly agreed. They were married May 1970, which was crazy and lovely and Molly didn’t realize at the time there would never be a proper event like that again. Septimus’s six brothers Sextus, Quintus, Bob, Tertius, Secundus, and Primus came with their wives and equally unfortunately named children. (Arthur had told Molly that he and his twin brothers Bill and Will—Bilius and Wilius, which only Bilius would deign to use, once he got properly sloshed—had gotten off comparatively lucky, and she was only beginning to appreciate exactly how much.) Molly was a little surprised to see them all. It was a major scandal, apparently, when Septimus decided to stop at only three children, and not continue to seven, and he had had no contact with any of the even-numbered brothers for close to eight years. Compounded with his marriage to a Black, the other brothers had almost threatened to excommunicate him from the family plot—what did he think he was doing? Becoming one of those purebloods?—and Molly was unsure how exactly they were all on speaking terms.
The Black contingent at Molly and Arthur’s wedding was very small, just Cedrella and Lucretia, who’d married into the Weasley and Prewett families. For the Prewetts there were Molly’s two brothers, Fabian and Gideon, and her mishmash of aunties and uncles and cousins. What more could they have needed? Of course Euphemia and Fleamont came; they almost never turned down a social engagement.
After about a week Moody came by.
“You’re sure?” he said. His eye was bright.
“Very sure,” Molly said.
“Our children need a better future,” Arthur said. “They can’t grow up in this.”
A smile played on Moody’s lips. “Quite.”
They had just been approved for the Burrow, which was one of the Weasley Plots, and Molly was almost weak with relief. She’d grown up in Devon. She loved being near all of her family, and the sea. She was very afraid they’d be granted a Plot on the Isle of Skye as a continued punishment for Arthur’s father’s ways. They immediately set about restoring it: the Burrow had been last used for Old Man Weasley—which Old Man, she could not say—probably, based on the hob, in the eighteenth century, and was little more than a one-floor cottage. But they built up. That was how Weasleys believed in using their land, and their magic. A hodgepodge. A higgledy piggledy. A rose with no center and no edges, ever unfurling. So they topped the Burrow with a large, wonky tower, and filled it with children. Somehow twenty-five years passed, and Moody was knocking on their door again.
“Yes,” Molly said, and Arthur said “no.”
Moody raised an eyebrow. “Tell me in a week.”
They did not tell the children anything. Ron, Ginny, and the twins were out playing Quidditch in the garden. Molly was conscious, suddenly, of all the ways they’d aged and changed since they had decided yes in the very same room.
She wiped her hands on a towel. “Harry needs us.”
“He does, but he’s not our son.”
“He might as well be!”
“Sirius, legally, is his godfather.”
“Who’s hosting Harry for Christmas? Who sends him packages on his birthday? Who—?”
“I’m just saying, Molly, he isn’t alone.”
“And I’m just saying, Arthur, that we’re his best people.” She dried her hands on the towel. “I don’t doubt Sirius loves him, but look at him. He can’t even take care of himself.”
“He was in Azkaban for thirteen years.”
“Which means he can love Harry, but he can’t parent Harry. He knew Harry’s parents, yes, but he doesn’t know Harry, and I don't want him to—”
“---conflate Harry with James,” Arthur finished.
“Or Lily.”
“Or Lily,” he repeated. “I know.”
He looked out of the kitchen window and Molly knew what he was thinking of: James and Lily’s wedding. The late summer of 1979 was full of them, but theirs had stood out. It was the day Molly found out she was pregnant, for one. The boys—all, except Ron—were little and charming and full of verve and very, very magical. Everything in the Burrow, in those days, had to be spelled in place. It was the last real time either of them had seen Fleamont or Euphemia.
“He was young,” Molly said. “And then he was—in Azkaban.”
“But I’m saying it’s different now,” Arthur said. He turned the coffee cup over in his hands, and then set it down. He grabbed a potato from the pile and began to peel. “The first time, we were giving our children a future. Who couldn’t say yes or no to that? But now…they have their own lives. You remember what happened to all—to all those big families in the Order. Like the McKinnons. Like—like your brothers, Molly.”
She bit back a scream.
“We’re still fighting for their futures,” Molly said. She crossed her arms. “I don’t think any of them can argue with that. We’re blood traitors to the Death Eaters, anyways; they won’t care. They’ll come for us.”
“It’s just…”
She waited for him to continue, and prodded him when he didn’t. “Arthur. Out with it.”
He looked up from his potato, eyes shimmering. “What about Percy?”
The name hung in the air. A leak dripped from the faucet. One of the twins hit a Bludger, and Molly heard Ginny laugh.
“We’re keeping his room empty,” she said, her throat feeling tight. “He can always come home.”
“If we’re in the same lift in the Ministry, he won’t talk to me,” Arthur confessed, and started to break down. She put a hand on his shoulder and he held it tight. There was nothing more to say. She checked on the clock every night, touched Percy with two fingers, wondering if he felt it, a shadow of a kiss. She had to assume he’d be okay. It had only been two weeks. It couldn’t be much longer. Percy liked to do this his way, but he always came home in the end. The Weasleys always came home in the end. Septimus’s brothers forgave him. They all died on good terms. But Percy could not die. None of her children would die from this war, Molly promised herself. She would die before any of them did.
“Buck up, Arthur,” Molly said quietly, wishing for better words, and wiped the tears from her cheeks.