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Molly held her steaming cup with clammy fingers, afraid that the china would break at any moment under the enormous pressure, scattering shards and freshly brewed tea everywhere. The cup was from one of the dozens of cupboards in the Grimmauld Place kitchen, a rather ugly abnormality, with a tiny snake for a handle and hideous gray-blue decorations that all looked a little like undergrowth to Molly, or perhaps deadly ivy entwined around a neck. It was macabre, she thought, that she had just pulled this cup out of the cupboard to make herself a soothing cup of tea.
On the Black family's miserably long kitchen table lay a single photograph in front of her, the printed side facing the wood, the yellowed, once white side facing the ceiling. The date 08/04/1981 had been hastily scrawled on the back, an eternal reminder that the people who lived in the picture had not really lived for a long time. She had seen Mad-Eye showing the picture around at the party, like a ghastly trophy from school, or rather a memento of all those who had died. Mad-Eye certainly hadn't thought about the emotions it would evoke - for that, the old curmudgeon would have to admit to himself that emotions were a natural thing and hell would freeze over before Mad-Eye Moody would admit being human.
She didn't know if he'd left the picture here on purpose so someone else would find it, or if he'd simply forgotten about it - both scenarios were hard for her to believe coming from Moody. Nonetheless, the old picture was here for anyone to find, a memento from a bygone age, and it had been chance (or perfidious fate, perhaps) that Molly had found it. But then - she'd rather she found it than Harry or Ron getting their hands on it. She never knew what was going on with those two and what they were up to again, but she could imagine that it wasn't a good idea to show Harry something like that.
Molly took a sip of her tea. Just then, the kitchen door opened.
Tall and still far too thin, with a holey T-shirt and round glasses over his green eyes, Harry stepped into the kitchen and had to duck to avoid running his head into the scarlet banner they had put up for the party. His eyes fell first on Molly, then on the table, with the upturned picture.
Molly's hand was too slow to make it disappear quickly. “What are you doing up so late, Harry?” she asked, hoping to distract him.
Harry's eyes focused on the picture on the table. A muscle in his jaw worked hard and oh, Molly's heart wanted to leap out of her chest. When had that scared little boy who had asked her for directions on the platform grown up so much? When had he almost become a man who looked so much like his father? “I wanted a drink. Didn't know you were here too.” He pointed to the photo with his lanky arm. “That's the one of Moody, isn't it?”
Molly grimaced. “You really shouldn't concern yourself with that, dear. Here, I'll do -”
“It's all right,” Harry said. He walked slowly to the kitchen cupboard and pulled out a similarly horrible cup. With one finger, he flicked the switch on the kettle and leaned against the sideboard. “He's already shown me,” he added slowly, as the soft sound of bubbling water filled the kitchen. “The photo of the order, I mean. Moody showed it to me at the party.”
A shiver ran through Molly. “I see.” She reached for the picture with careful fingers and turned it over. “I don't think he should have shown it to you.”
Harry nodded. “By now I know why he did it. I was... the first time I saw it, I thought it was awful. All those people who just wanted to fight for a better world, all killed by Voldemort.”
Molly winced at the mention of the name. It had certainly been nearly twenty years since that name had made its rounds in the wizarding world. You'd think she'd have gotten used to it by now, but even a ten-year period of peace hadn't helped her build up the courage to use or hear it. “The Order wasn't prepared then,” she said quietly. “Everyone wanted so badly to believe that we just needed to band together so we could stop the Death Eaters, but,” she shrugged lamely. “In the end, it was nothing more than nonsensical hope that sent so many people to their deaths.”
The kettle made a hissing sound and Harry hurried to take it off the stove. He poured himself a cupful, carried it carefully to the other side of the table and finally sat down opposite Molly, his lanky, long arms in the way of any movement. “The members of the First Order,” he began, but stopped and pressed his lips together.
“I don't know much about them,” Molly admitted, ”because I was too busy protecting my family at the time, but I knew some of them. If you...”
“My parents,” Harry said cautiously. “You knew them, didn't you?”
“Fleetingly. Arthur and I were already out of school when your parents started. Sirius and Remus too. They were all in the same year, but you already knew that. I met Sirius once when he was younger, at a big party. You know, all those pureblood families could never stop throwing big parties and bragging about how much money they had. Sirius was still working as his family's heir back then and had to accompany his parents everywhere.” Molly smiled fleetingly as she thought about what it had been like back then. “It had been very obvious at the time that he hadn't wanted to come at all, but it was his duty as the eldest son, just as it had been mine.”
Harry opened his mouth, but closed it just as quickly.
Molly smiled. “It's okay, you can ask, Harry.”
“The other people,” he said slowly. “In the photo that Moody mentioned. Did you know them too?” He leaned forward to look at the picture in her hand and pointed to a blonde woman smiling blearily at the camera. “Her, for example. McKinnon.”
Molly's smile froze. “I've heard about her. Quite a terrible thing. She was in your parents' year and... and as far as I know, she was friends with your mother. Marlene, that was her name.”
Harry looked like he was going to be sick any moment, but he nodded quickly at her.
“They wiped out her whole family. All the McKinnons. I don't know why. All I know is that it was suddenly a headline in the Daily Prophet. No one said what had happened, but of course everyone knew that - that He was responsible.” Molly lowered her eyes to the picture. Marlene McKinnon, forever in her early twenties, trapped in a picture that captured her last moments. She wondered what the poor thing had felt. How frightened she must have been. She shuddered a little. In the picture next to Marlene McKinnon stood a woman with dark skin and dark, long hair in tight braids. One hand was wrapped clammily around Marlene's shoulder. She had a fiery look in her eyes.
“Dorcas Meadowes,” Harry said quietly. “At least that's what Moody says.”
“Yes,” Molly replied slowly. ‘She was... talented. A gifted witch, from what my,’ she swallowed hard. ‘From what I heard. He-who-must-not-be-named killed her personally.’ Molly could still remember all too well when she found out about it. She had locked herself in her room with her babies for days. Just the thought that He would personally see to her death... it had been enough to cause Molly several panic attacks.
Harry pursed his lips. “Moody had also spoken of,” he took a quiet breath and clutched his tea a little tighter, “Fabian and Gideon.”
“Ah.” Molly closed her eyes. She had wondered when he would ask about them. It was probably only a matter of time before she would have to talk about her brothers. Years of forgetting and mourning would only get her so far. She raised her eyes and met Harry's, those bright green eyes she had grown so fond of. When she imagined that this poor boy would never get to know his own parents, she felt sick. She couldn't replace his mother, much as she wanted to, and no one would ever be able to replace her brothers. It was probably time she stopped pretending she didn't have any brothers.
“I'm sorry,” Harry murmured, averting his eyes. ‘I was curious about who they were, so I looked in the family tree books.”
“I suppose it would have come out sooner or later anyway,’ she said, sighing. ”I don't like talking about my brothers for a good reason, Harry, I hope you understand that.”
“They were very young when they died,” Harry replied. ”Gideon and Fabian.”
Molly nodded before looking back at the picture. They were standing behind Marlene McKinnon, their fiery red hair and large noses matching each other like in a mirror image, only their facial features were different. Gideon was a little taller than Fabian and she still knew that he had always teased him about it, even though they were twins. Fabian, on the other hand, had always been stronger than his brother. Molly smiled when she saw the frozen smiles on her brothers' faces.
“Were they older than my parents?” asked Harry, who had also spotted them.
“A bit,” she said quietly. ‘But not by much. Still far too young to fight, I told them over and over again, but they wouldn't listen to me. They always said that it wasn't just their duty, but also their right to die in battle. They—’ Molly's voice broke and she pressed her lips together. It had been fifteen years since her brothers had died, and yet not a day went by when she was not reminded of them, whether it was Fred and George, who had inherited the same sense of humor as their uncles, or Ginny, who had Fabian's nose. Every day she had to see her brothers without really being able to see them.
“I hardly know anything about my parents.” Harry scratched the ugly flower on his teacup over and over with his fingernail. ”All I know about them, other people have told me. Sirius and Remus don't like to talk about them and no one else knew them well enough to tell me something I don't already know. All I keep hearing is that I look like my father.”
Molly raised her eyes to look at Harry's face, then looked back at the picture of the Order. “It's true,” she replied with a smile. “You really do look like James.”
A proud expression crossed his face, but disappeared just as quickly. ”I just wish I knew what he was like, not just what he looked like, you know? I never got a chance to talk to him, so I don't know what to think when people tell me that I look like my dead father.” He pursed his lips in a grimace. ”I'm sorry, Mrs. Weasley. I don't mean to—”
“No, it's all right, Harry. I know what you mean. I have had the privilege of knowing my brothers, and... it's never easy when a loved one dies, no matter how much time you spend with them. I had twenty-three years to spend with Fabian and Gideon, and still it doesn't feel like enough. I have children their age. Every time I close my eyes, I see it again. An employee of the Auror Office, dressed all in black, telling me that they are dead. Only this time it is Charlie and Bill. Or Fred and George.” She reached across the table for Harry's cool hand and clasped it in her own. ”My family is the most important thing in this world to me, Harry. I know how you feel.”
Harry smiled wryly. “What were they like? Your brothers, I mean.”
“Oh, they were impossible,” Molly found herself saying. She couldn't remember the last time she had talked about her brothers, or even said their names aloud. She avoided talking about the first war around Arthur, and certainly not with the children... there weren't many of Fabian and Gideon's earlier friends left, and she doubted that they would remember her at all, let alone want to talk about her. But Harry... he was as much her son as Ron was, but it felt easier to talk to him about it. Different. Harry knew what it was like to lose someone. Harry would understand.
“Like Fred and George?“ he asked.
“Worse,” she admitted. “Wherever they went, they always managed to attract attention and—and blow something up! I'm pretty sure that Zonko's only owes its success to the fact that these two were constantly buying out the shop. I distinctly remember that in their fourth year they filled the entire prefects' bathroom with exploding soaps. Poor Ellenore Perwickle, she wanted to take a relaxing bath and instead –” she mimed an explosion with her hands. “The whole hallway was flooded and Ellenore still had soap in her hair weeks later that just wouldn't wash out. I bet if she hadn't magically made Fabian's pants see-through in front of the whole school, he never would have told her how to get rid of it.” Shaking her head, she placed her hand on the table. She had dozens of such memories, of people she hadn't spoken to in decades, about her brothers and their machinations and everything that had happened in between. “I distinctly remember how one of their pranks backfired completely and Professor McGonagall made them trim the Quidditch field as punishment. By hand, of course. They assured me that it was worth it though. They managed to turn an entire corridor of the dungeon into jelly that even Professor Flitwick couldn't reverse.”
Harry laughed and covered his mouth. “I bet they'd be proud of Fred and George.”
It was such a simple thing to say, without any real meaning behind it. Of course they would be. Of course they would be proud of their nephews. Molly's face crumpled up and she began sobbing. “Oh Merlin,” she murmured, wiping her eyes. “Twice in one day, you must think me mad, Harry.” She tried to laugh, but all she managed was another sob.
“I'm sorry,” he said quickly. ‘I didn't mean to...”
“Merlin, no,’ she replied. Molly took a deep breath. ”It's been ages since I really got emotional about them, you know? I... I do a pretty good job of not thinking about them too much. It's been so long and yet the pain is still as fresh as the day it happened. If I think about them for too long, I can't help but start crying like I'm twenty again.”
“I don't want to say the wrong thing,” he started slowly, ”but it seems like talking about them is good for you. About Fabian and Gideon.”
Molly sighed softly. “Sometimes, yes. I don't think I'm ready to mention them all the time. I don't know if I'll ever be ready for that. If I can talk about them without thinking that they're... that they're no longer here, then I don't know what I'll do. It feels wrong.”
“Why is that?”
“I don't know, Harry.” Molly looked back at the picture, at her brothers, who were looking up at her with frozen smiles. ‘It's like I'm forgetting them.”
“That's impossible,’ Harry said. ”They're still here. Not in the picture, I mean. In the others. In Fred and George's pranks, for example. They're still here, just different.”
Molly started sobbing for a third time, and before she knew it, she was talking again: “Every day, I think about what it was like the last time I saw them, you know? It was a day like any other, of course, nobody could have known what was going to happen. Fabian came to me and Arthur with the flea powder because he never tolerated the apparating well and Gideon was standing in front of the house a moment later. As always, when the two of them stopped by, they showered the children with gifts, it was impossible. Bill had just turned ten and was so looking forward to Hogwarts that Fabian and Gideon conjured up a miniature castle for him. It was so wonderful to see. For Charlie, who was eight at the time, they had brought another stuffed dragon. A Chinese fireball. I think he still has it today. Per-”, she faltered in her torrent of words, took a breath and continued, pretending that it wouldn't break her heart in two, ”Percy was four and already had to wear glasses back then, so the two of them brought him a whole range of joke glasses. One sang when you pressed it, the other hurled vicious insults at the person looking at it. Oh, I was so angry that they gave him that. He kept asking all evening what the words were.” She shook her head at the memory. Today she wished she could go back and experience it again. “As usual, Fred and George had gotten the most things. They were just two, couldn't even talk, let alone do magic, but they gave them toy wands and mini-cloaks and pointed hats so they could feel like they could go to Hogwarts soon too. And they hid stink bombs in the hats,” she added, and Harry laughed and so did she. ”I had to put a refreshing spell on the whole children's room before you could enter it again, it was impossible. Fred and George loved it, of course. I'm sure that's where their love for all this stuff comes from.” She sighed, smiling. “I wanted the two of them to stay for dinner, but Gideon told me they had another mission. Nothing exciting, he said,” she added with a dull voice. “Just follow a suspicious Ministry employee for a few hours. They'll come to dinner if they make it. Fabian told me that he would come over this weekend to help Arthur with the garden and Gideon wanted to introduce us to his new girlfriend. It should have been the moment when I told them that I was pregnant again at the time. With Ron,“ she added, a smile on her lips, although she could only cry.
“They never found out,” Harry concluded cautiously.
“No. The doorbell rang that evening and I thought it was Gideon, but it was a man from the Auror Office who then told me that... well.”
This time, Harry took her hand and squeezed it firmly. “I'm very sorry, Mrs. Weasley.”
“Nonsense, Harry, dear. No, really, I—it feels good to talk about them again without someone looking up who knew them or what they looked like.” She tilted her head a little and sighed again. ‘Sometimes I forget how tall you've become, Harry.”
Harry blushed darkly. ’Not that tall.”
“Nonsense,” she said again. Then: ‘I'm pretty sure that Gideon and Fabian would have liked you very much, Harry.”
Moisture glistened behind his glasses and when Molly took a sip of cooled tea, he quickly pretended to rub his eye. ’I really wish I had been able to meet them.”
“I wish that too.” She looked back at the picture and pushed it across the table to him. ”If you ever want to know something about your parents... Arthur and I didn't know them well, but we knew them enough to tell you something. If you want.”
For a moment, Molly was able to forget that they were on the brink of a second war. For a moment, she was able to forget how many people had already lost their lives. For a moment, she saw the past, saw her brothers and her children and James and Lily Potter and just for that one brief moment, all was right with the world.
All would be right.