Molly's War

Molly’s War

The boggart turned into a werewolf when Professor Merrythought called Molly Prewett to the front of the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. It had sharp claws and great fangs, and it was dragging Fabian, the baby of the family, away by the neck. He was screaming and his blood gushed out on the classroom floor.

“Riddikulus,” said Molly faintly, but Fabian lay crumpled at her feet as the werewolf howled over him in triumph.

She stood there, frozen, until their teacher stepped forward and demonstrated the spell again with practiced hand, and then called on another student to take Molly’s place. The lesson went on all around her. The boggart turned into a succession of toothless vampires and ghouls in ridiculous hats, and the shrieks and laughter of the students echoed against the stone walls, but Molly still felt slightly frozen inside.

Professor Merrythought summoned her into the office afterwards. It smelled of lavender sachets and mothballs in there. Molly stood in the doorway with her hands behind her back, feeling small and shy. Was she in trouble? “I tried my best,” she said. “I’m not very good at Defense.”

“I know you tried your best,” said Professor Merrythought. “Your trouble in this instance, I think, comes from the fact that you are mature beyond your years. This is why it is best to learn about boggarts when you are still young. Most people your age think only of themselves when they face a boggart, but you are already beginning to fear for others, and those are always the hardest fears to banish.” She seemed to be speaking more to herself than to Molly when she added, “Selfishness is a kind of innocence. Perhaps it is well not to lose it too early, for one never gets it back, but do not forget that it is still worse to lose it too late.”

Molly puzzled over this speech for some time. She supposed Professor Merrythought was trying to be kind, but she was a very old lady, more than a hundred, and she had never had any children of her own (Molly thought that must be very terrible), and she didn’t seem altogether sure how to go about it.

In the end, she decided that it didn’t matter so much that she had failed with the boggart, because if they ever had a real one in their house, she could always call one of her other brothers – Ignatius, or Constantine, or even Gideon, who was two years younger than Molly but very clever. They would know what to do.

 

                                                            *          *          *

When she finally met a werewolf face to face, he was not what she had expected.

Under the circumstances, she hardly even registered what he was. She had sat beside the boy she thought of as a seventh son as he slipped into a troubled and grief-ridden sleep, stood by as Professor Dumbledore and the Minister of Magic denounced one another, and jumped back in shock when the great black dog at Harry’s bedside erupted into the notorious mass murderer, Sirius Black. It had, in short, been a rough night, and she had almost lost her capacity for astonishment by the time Professor Dumbledore introduced her to Remus Lupin.

He had a kind and steady face, though he was rather tired-looking and too thin; Molly thought she ought to ask him over for a proper meal as soon as possible. He asked after Ron and Ginny and Percy and the twins, and she thought, confusedly, Oh yes, last year’s Defense teacher ... children all adored him ... isn’t it extraordinary that he turned out to be ... But he isn’t a bad person, he can’t be. And she left it at that; because when Molly liked people, she liked them, and she seldom troubled herself by thinking too hard about what they had been and done.

Sirius Black was another matter. She was just beginning to wrap her head around the possibility that he might not be a mass murderer at all, when he had begun to talk of Harry as though the boy were his, when Molly knew he had been their Harry for nearly four years. She made up her mind that she did not like Black.

 

                                                            *          *          *

Boggarts change over time. Molly’s younger brothers had been dead and buried for sixteen years, and when she faced boggarts these days, she saw her own boys lying lifeless on the floor. They were not struggling and bleeding and being dragged away by werewolves; they had the cold still look of corpses felled by Avada Kedavra. For she knew now that humans were the greatest monsters there were.

RonBillArthurFredGeorgePercy ... oh dear God ... She heard Harry shouting, as if from far away, and knew that she had to protect him, but her hand and her voice faltered and in a moment she was staring at his corpse on the floor.

She hardly noticed when Remus came into the room. He dispatched the boggart with a flick of his wand and a firm Riddikulus, as if it were no more than a petty annoyance, and walked over to Molly’s side. “Molly – Molly, don’t –”

She buried her head in his shoulder (she couldn’t do that with Arthur; he was too tall, and besides, he depended on her to be strong), and burst into tears.

“Molly, it was just a boggart,” he said gently. “Just a stupid boggart.”

She tried to explain. “I see them dead all the time. All the time. I dream about it...” A fresh flood of tears choked her.

When she wiped away her tears and looked up again, she saw that Sirius Black was staring at the patch of moonlight where Harry’s body had been lying. His face was pale and his eyes unnaturally bright, but he did not speak of what he had seen until after Harry had left the room.

“You saw –” said Black in a strangled voice, “– you saw Harry ...”

“I think it is time the two of you were friends,” said Remus quietly.

The two men looked at each other, and a flicker of something Molly didn’t altogether understand passed between them. “Right,” Sirius muttered. “I’m – I reckon I’ve said a few things to you that weren’t fair. I’m sorry.” He offered Molly his hand.

Molly remembered herself saying It’s been rather difficult for you to look after him while you were locked up in Azkaban, and thought she had been more unfair than he had. She squirmed with inward shame. She was not the sort of person who found it easy to apologize in so many words, but she shook hands with him and afterwards, when he had left the room, she asked Remus what his friend’s favorite pudding was. He seemed a little amused by the question, but he replied, “Walnut Firewhiskey tart with ice cream.”

Molly sank down on the drawing-room sofa, feeling utterly drained.

Remus sat down beside her. “I know. It’s horrible. But you must remember that it isn’t real.”

“What difference does it make,” Molly said, still sobbing a little, “if the thing you’re afraid of is real or not?”

“I think it makes a great deal of difference,” said Remus, “although I understand why it mightn’t seem that way at the time. Let me tell you a bit about how boggarts work. It will help you if you understand the science behind it...”

He grew more enthusiastic as he spoke, and she saw that he had never stopped being a teacher at heart. “They aren’t classified as Dark creatures because they aren’t creatures at all. Biologically speaking, they’re a sort of magical fungus – no different from a toadstool. When they aren’t transformed into a particular shape they can only move by oozing, and they haven’t enough of a mind to deliberately attack people. And yet they are endowed with a powerful ability known as affective magic. Wizards have striven to mimic it for centuries, and we’re not much good at it – we’ve created a few spells and objects that are a pale imitation of what the boggart does by instinct. They sense what is in our minds and hearts, you see, and with this intuition they transform themselves into an illusion of what we fear most. Only an illusion, of course – it has no more substance than a mirage in the desert, and yet its power to deceive is such that it can turn aside whole armies...” He told her how French wizards had harnessed the power of boggarts in Grindelwald’s War, and Molly found herself interested in spite of herself.

“I shouldn’t have done very well against them,” she said. “I would have surrendered right away.” And then, remembering what Professor Merrythought had said so many years ago, she added, “But I suppose Grindelwald would have found it easier. He was very selfish.”

“There isn’t going to be any surrender for any of us. When people let themselves be ruled by fear, it destroys everything in them that is kind and generous – and our enemy knows how to exploit that weakness only too well. You will have to learn how to fight it.”

“I’m not really a fighter,” said Molly. She had been in doubt about how much she could do to assist the Order from the beginning; it had been Dumbledore who had insisted that she had something to offer...

“No more am I. I had to learn, too.”

 

                                                            *          *          *

The following evening, after everyone had finished off a double helping of walnut Firewhiskey tart with ice cream, the lessons began.

Molly found them difficult and draining. The Riddikulus charm was all very well and good, she thought, if your greatest fear was heights or cockroaches, but she didn’t know how you were meant to laugh in the face of death, and Remus admitted that he didn’t know either. Sirius, who had been watching the lessons with a grim, fixed expression, said that he did know, and he hoped that she never learned.

She asked Remus to demonstrate the spell again, more so that she could have a break than because she had any real hope it would help, but he shook his head and said he didn’t believe in teaching by imitation. “I tried it once or twice,” he said, “but I found that it made the students too focused on trying to mimic the tone of my voice and the way I held my wand, when really, they needed to feel their own way through it. What works for me mightn’t work for you. What counts is the force of mind and will, and – oh, I’ve got an idea that may help. Do you know how to cast a Patronus?”

“Oh, yes. Professor Dumbledore asked me to cast one before I joined.”

“Riddikulus works on the same general principle. Why don’t you practice with the Patronus a few times, if that’s easier for you, and get used to putting yourself in a particular frame of mind before you have another go with the boggart.”

They began every practice session with Expecto Patronum after that, but still Molly struggled. She was gaining control over her emotions, and casting a Patronus heartened her and made it easier to face the boggart – but at the same time, most of her happy memories involved Arthur or the children or her own brothers when she was small, and this only reminded her of how very fragile a thing happiness was.

“I expect this must be much easier for – for He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named,” she said.

“Voldemort,” said Remus and Sirius at the same time, and, when Molly shuddered, Remus added in a gentler voice, “You must get used to hearing it, no matter how much it frightens you. Otherwise this will never work.”

“What makes you think it would be easier for him?” Sirius asked.

“He doesn’t love anyone,” said Molly, “and that means he hasn’t got anything to be afraid of. Nothing real, anyway.”

Sirius shook his head. “It means he hasn’t got anything to give him strength,” he said. “Believe me. Love is the first thing they take from you in Azkaban, because without it you have no will to fight.”

Sirius certainly sounded like he knew what he was talking about; but Molly noticed that he did not seem particularly eager to try his own strength against the frozen violence of Harry’s lifeless form. It was usually Remus who stepped in when she became exhausted. She watched his technique closely and tried to copy it, but in the end she realized that he had been right: what worked for him would not work for her. He often joked about his illness, and it seemed to come easily to him.

 

                                                            *          *          *

Even after Molly and Arthur had moved back to The Burrow, she continued to Floo over to 12 Grimmauld Place in the evenings. She was grateful that Arthur was not the sort of husband who minded her spending evening after evening in the company of two other men, one of whom still bore the traces of remarkable good looks – not that she thought of either of them in that way, of course. They were easily a decade younger than she was, and they were fast becoming two more of her boys. It helped that they remembered Gideon, and had been to school with Fabian.

The dark cloud of gloom that Sirius seemed to carry with him lifted when he reminisced about his school days – it sounded like he and James Potter had been quite as much trouble as Fred and George, only with Animagus abilities thrown in. Molly thought remembering James was probably very good for him, and Remus evidently thought so too, because he never seemed to mind if the lessons went on hold for a few hours or even the whole evening. Once or twice, Sirius Summoned a bottle of wine from the Black cellars, and when Remus’ tongue had been loosened by the alcohol, he turned out to be a remarkable storyteller in his own right. It took them the better part of a second bottle to get through the saga of the summer they had worked as instructors for the Kwikspell Correspondence School, and Molly laughed so hard that the tears were rolling down her cheeks.

Remus gave her an abrupt, sideways glance and said, “Back to work, I think,” although there was still wine in the glasses. Molly was about to protest that she wasn’t ready, she was a little tipsy and her spellwork wouldn’t be at its best, but he had already released the boggart from the wardrobe where it was imprisoned.

She waved her wand vaguely and muttered a rather slurred “Riddikulus,” and all at once, one of the twins sat bolt upright in his coffin and a flag reading GOTCHA YA! popped out of his chest. With a second wave of her wand, the boggart vanished.

“Congratulations, Molly,” said Remus.

She stood in the middle of the drawing room, laughing and crying and having the hiccups all at once. “I did it,” she said incredulously, as soon as she could speak again. “I did it all by myself.”

The two men looked at each other and grinned, and it was only then that she saw the drinks and the schoolboy reminiscences had been part of Remus’ plan all along, and they were for her benefit rather than Sirius’.

 

                                                            *          *          *

As winter approached, the members of the Order spent long nights on duty and the short days trying to catch up on sleep. Molly did not see either of her new friends for some weeks, until the terrible night when Arthur was attacked by a giant snake and her younger children were hurried home from Hogwarts. As soon as he was out of danger, she and the children rushed to the hospital for a visit.

“How is Arthur?” Remus asked when they returned.

“He’s better – but oh, I wish this hadn’t happened, and at Christmas too. He makes light of it, but I can tell he’s really in pain. And they’ve got him in a room with a werewolf, I don’t know what those Healers can be thinking, I shan’t sleep a wink and it’ll be a miracle if any of the other people on the ward can, either –”

Molly broke off. Remus had said nothing, but his pale cheeks were flushed scarlet and he was looking at the floor.

“Oh! I didn’t mean you,” she said. “Everyone knows you wouldn’t hurt a soul.”

“On the contrary,” he said stiffly, “there are a great many people who do not know that.”

She couldn’t think of anything to say, except that she hadn’t ever thought of him as a real werewolf, which was true but didn’t seem likely to help matters.

“You asked me once if it mattered whether the thing you feared was real or not. You were right. It makes no difference at all – at least not if one happens to be the thing feared.” He turned and walked out of the room.

“Remus, wait – I wasn’t thinking –”

But he had gone.

Sirius shook his head when she appealed to him for advice. “He’s a proud man,” he said, “and he’s the kind of person who won’t forget that remark easily. If ever.”

“Isn’t there anything I can do at all? I’ve been thoughtless – I know that – but does it have to ruin our friendship for good?”

“Oh, I didn’t say he wouldn’t forgive easily. That’s an entirely different matter.”

“What’s his favorite pudding?” asked Molly.

“French silk pie, but I think it’s going to take more than that.”

 

                                                            *          *          *

Remus complimented her on the pie, politely but rather distantly, and she saw that it would indeed take more than that. He didn’t eat or talk much at dinner, and over the next few days he spent more and more time alone in the library. When Ginny and the twins tried to drag him downstairs to help with the decorating, he smiled vaguely and muttered something about having to do research for an article he was writing.

She found his attitude baffling. It was clear that the breach in their friendship was hurting him at least as much as it was hurting her, yet he didn’t seem inclined to take any steps to heal things. Her family didn’t do that; they raged and stormed and wept and forgave in the space of an hour, and then picked up just as they had been before – or, in much rarer cases, stayed angry for good. She did not think Remus was angry with her, and he certainly wasn’t angry with the children. He was just distant.

He’s afraid, she realized suddenly. It isn’t the moon that frightens him most, it’s everything that goes along with it – isolation, prejudice, rejection. And he may talk a good game about not letting yourself be ruled by fear, but he’s letting it happen to him.

Things went on like this until Christmas morning, when one of the Ministry post-owls dropped an unopened package on the doorstep of 12 Grimmauld Place. It was still wrapped in the reindeer-printed paper that Molly had made with such care, and there wasn’t even a note attached.

Molly unwrapped the jumper, just to make sure Percy hadn’t slipped a message inside the package, and burst into tears.

“Don’t cry, Mum,” said George cheerfully. “He isn’t worth it.”

“He’s nothing but a humongous pile of rat droppings,” Fred added. “We’re better off without him.”

“He’s your brother and don’t you dare forget it,” snapped Molly, and then she began to sob harder. The twins had never gotten along with Percy, of course – but it hurt to see them take his loss so lightly, as if he had never been part of the family at all.

Remus had been sipping his tea in silence and she had hardly noticed he was in the room at all, but he was there at her side with a extra cup of tea and a clean handkerchief in an instant.

“I’m sorry, Molly,” he said. “You tried your best to mend things, but you can only do so much with someone who won’t listen.”

“You can’t just give up on people,” she said fiercely. “You’ve got to reach out, and keep on reaching out ... otherwise how will he know we still care for him?”

“You’re right,” he said. Slowly, his hand inched forward, until it was resting on her arm.

“And perhaps someday he’ll change his mind,” Molly said hopefully. “People do change their minds, you know ... You changed mine.”

“Did I?”

“Yes. I was just thinking – that poor man in the hospital with Arthur – he must be lonely.”

If Remus was wondering how this followed, his face showed no sign of confusion. “I expect he is, yes. I should like to have a word with him when we visit Arthur this afternoon.”

“Do you think he’d like a jumper? Since we’ve got an extra one, I mean?”

Remus looked at the magenta jumper with the scarlet P on it and smiled. “Perhaps you’d better keep the jumper, Molly. Sometimes you think you’ve lost people for good, and then they surprise you.”