JUST A BOGGART

 

"Well, I think I'll sort out that boggart before I turn in," Molly announced, yawning sleepily. "Arthur, I don't want this lot up too late, all right?" She stood and made her way across the room, pausing to pat Harry on the shoulder. "'Night, Harry, dear." The poor thing. He looked so lost, standing in the midst of the dinner crowd, but still somehow out of place. He'd seemed to feel out of place since he'd arrived, come to think of it...

 

Molly plodded wearily up the stairs, yawning on every other step, grateful for the chance to escape the party and head up to bed. She was so tired. Sleep hadn't been coming easily lately. It was getting harder and harder to make it all the way through the night, ever since the beginning of the summer, when they'd begun their work for the Order.

 

Oh, drat, she thought then, as she reached the second floor landing and remembered the boggart in the drawing room. She had promised to deal with it, hadn't she? Oh well...

 

With a sigh, she made her way down the hall and into the drawing room, but she paused when she reached the writing desk. What did she fear most? Oh dear, You-Know-Who certainly sprang to mind, though she wasn't sure how she could find a way to laugh at him... after all, though, it was just a boggart. A child could handle a boggart.

 

"Alohomora!" she murmured, and the top drawer of the writing desk sprang open. What did she fear most...?

 

At first, Molly Weasley wasn't quite sure what she was seeing. A figure seemed to be rising out of the desk... a figure with red hair...

 

Suddenly, the figure collapsed to the ground, and Molly knew her worst fear. She didn't fear Voldemort. She feared this.

 

"Mum!" the figure gasped. It was Ginny, and she was covered in blood. "Mum... help me...," she groaned, and then lay still.

 

Molly drew a shaky breath, and willed her heart to slow down. No, she told herself firmly, it's not real. Ginny's alive. She's alive. But she wasn't moving...

 

"R-Riddikulus," Molly choked, transfixed by the horrible image. No, she kept telling herself, it's not real... "Riddikulus..."

 

Crack!

 

Suddenly Charlie was on the floor, still and cold and blue...

 

No. It wasn't real.

 

But it could be, a voice whispered in her head. He's all the way in Romania... You'd never know until it was too late...

 

No.

 

If not today, maybe tomorrow...

 

"R-Riddikulus..."

 

Crack!

 

Ron! Oh, Ron, oh Ron, her poor baby, so still on the floor... oh Ron, oh no...

 

It's bound to happen sooner or later...

 

No!

 

"Riddikulus..."

 

Crack!

 

Bill...

 

Crack!

 

Arthur...

 

Crack!

 

Fred and George...

 

Crack!

 

Percy...

 

Crack!

 

Harry...

 

Oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no...

 

She was sobbing now and didn't know what to do, what to say, staring at Harry's body on the floor. Vaguely she could hear someone shouting at her, but she didn't understand. How could anything else be important; her children were dying! Her only family could be gone forever...

 

Then suddenly Harry's body vanished, replaced by a silvery orb. The moon. She looked up and saw Remus flick his wand, and the moon dissolved into a puff of smoke.

 

"Oh-oh-oh!" Molly gulped, her face in her hands, trying to erase the horrifying images from her head. She found herself sobbing on Remus's shoulder, and he patted her back soothingly, though it did little good. Her nightmares... her nightmares were becoming real...

 

"I see them dead all the time!" she sobbed, trying to explain. "All the time! I dream about them..."

 

Dreams, Molly, she tried to remind herself. They're just nightmares. It was a boggart, just a boggart...

 

"Don't tell Arthur," she found herself begging. "I don't want him to know... Being silly..."

 

She blew her nose on Remus's offered handkerchief, and noticed for the first time that the room was far from empty. Oh dear, had Sirius and Mad-Eye and Harry all seen her going round the bend because of some boggart? Oh, how embarrassing...

 

"Harry, I'm so sorry, what must you think of me? Not even able to get rid of a boggart..."

 

"Don't be stupid," said Harry, but she could see he still looked uncomfortable.

 

"I'm just so worried," she tried to explain, though to her annoyance, she seemed to be crying again. "Half the family's in the Order, it'll be a miracle if we all come through this..." Her stomach lurched. "And Percy's not talking to us... What if something dreadful happens and we never made up? And what's going to happen if Arthur and I get killed, who's going to look after Ron and Ginny?"

 

"Molly, that's enough," Remus told her. "This isn't like last time. The Order are better prepared, we've got a head start, we know what Voldemort's up to - " Her heart flip-flopped when she heard his name, but Remus continued. "Oh, Molly, come on, it's about time you got used to hearing it - look, I can't promise no one's going to get hurt, nobody can promise that, but we're much better off than we were last time, you weren't in the Order then, you don't understand, last time we were outnumbered twenty to one by the Death Eaters and they were picking us off one by one..."

 

I don't care about the odds, Molly thought desperately, I just want my family to get through this...

 

"Don't worry about Percy," Sirius said suddenly. He'd been unusually quiet since he'd entered the room. "He'll come round. It's a matter of time before Voldemort moves into the open; once he does, the whole Ministry's going to be begging us to forgive them. And I'm not sure I'll be accepting their apology." His look was suddenly ugly, and she remembered the photos of Sirius when he'd first escaped from Azkaban...

 

"And as for who's going to look after Ron and Ginny if you and Arthur died," Lupin began, addressing her other concern, "what do you think we'd do, let them starve?"

 

Molly tried to smile, but it was difficult. "Being silly," she murmured again, wiping her eyes one last time with the handkerchief.

 

It was only a boggart...