By A Love So Much Refined
Title: By A Love So Much Refined
Author: antonia_east
Words: 2200
Rating: PG
Summary: In January 1981 Molly Weasley receives some bad news and makes a hard decision.
Author's Notes: Written for the genfic challenge. My prompt was to explain why the Weasleys were so loyal to Dumbledore. What had he ever done for them?
The title is a line from John Donne's Valediction Forbidding Mourning.
Molly’s legs almost gave way as she lowered herself into her chair and, at long last, allowed herself the luxury of a heating charm on her slippers. It was achingly cold outside, and she hoped that Arthur was at the office, rather than out on a raid. She settled comfortably into the armchair, making sure to hold on to consciousness. She couldn’t fall asleep before Arthur came home. She wanted him to have a hot meal and some pleasant conversation after his hard day’s work. She knew that if he were to find her asleep, kind man that he was, he wouldn’t wake her, even though these late evenings were the only scraps of time they managed to spend together. She sighed a little, letting the breath hiss cool and slow from between her lips. Her world was made up of screaming children’s voices and hushed adults’ ones. She found flitting between the playful, demanding world of her children and the fearful and equally-demanding world outside exhausting. She closed her eyes - just for a minute - and savoured the stillness and silence of the house.
It wasn’t to remain silent for long. Ron, luckily in the cot next to Molly’s chair, started up a plaintive wail. She picked him up quickly, before any of the others woke up. Bill, old enough to realise much of what was going on around him and itching to go to Hogwarts to learn how to fight back like his uncles, had acquired the habit of bounding downstairs at the slightest noise, with a sleepy Charlie at his heels. Percy, though too young to know why, had picked up on the fear that hung in the air, bitter in every lungful. It had made him anxious; he always quested for answers. The twins seemed blissfully unaware, which was a blessing, but a tiring one. Molly grimaced as she unwrapped her shawl and unbuttoned her cardigan. The twins were firmly ensconced in their ‘terrible twos’, and she rather thought that they would stay there for some time to come.
“You’re my peaceful boy, aren’t you?” she said to the now-suckling baby. If only they stayed like this, sweet and manageable. So utterly unaware of the world outside, and in such complete need of protection from it. Molly could remember Fabian at that age, and if she peered into the depths of her childhood memories, a faint sense of Gideon, the ‘new baby’ too. They were grown into men, now. Silly, boyish, impossible, impulsive, clever, brave men who were fighting for what was right and good. They were keeping her and her husband and their six children safe. At this last thought, Molly blinked and looked down at Ron.
“I’ve got a surprise for your daddy,” she said. Ron paid no attention, but Molly hugged her youngest child tighter to herself and smiled.
Ron was asleep again - such a restful baby after the twins - when Arthur’s hand on the clock moved from work to travelling to home. Like every day, Molly felt a release of tension that she had not realised was there. They were all safe, then. Safe for one more night.
Arthur looked greyer every time he came home from work. Molly didn’t know how Gideon and Fabian managed to appear so cheerful; their work was much more dangerous than Arthur’s. Her stomach clenched and she pushed the feeling away, busying herself with the stove and the kettle.
“They must give you some time off soon,” she whispered. “I know there’s a lot to do, but surely they realise that you’ll be better able to do it if you’ve had some rest.”
Arthur rested his elbows on the table and hunched forward. “There’s no time for anyone to have a rest,” he said, “and there are many who need it more than I do. Few people have such a happy and comfortable home to come back to.”
Molly put the kettle down and kissed him. It wasn’t quite true: she worried about him at work and she believed that he worried about her and the children. There was never quite enough money to go round either, especially with Bill’s school fees to find next year.
“Actually, Arthur, I needed to talk to you about …”
“Molly! Arthur?”
The teaspoon, which had been carrying a sugar lump to Arthur’s mug, dropped onto the table with a dull clatter. Molly felt a twisting in her gut as she saw Albus Dumbledore’s head suspended in the flames. Molly reluctantly followed Arthur to the fireplace. She wanted to ignore the call and run far away from it. She wanted to take her family and run somewhere safe.
This was it. This was the call she had been dreading ever since Gideon and Fabian had made some very cryptic hints about why they spent so much time in the company of Aurors and Dumbledore. Dumbledore wanted Arthur. Molly knew it, and she knew just as emphatically that if Arthur were called then he would have to go, because he was a good man and a brave one. And yet it would mean leaving her and the children. It would mean so much more danger and Molly did not think she would have the courage to meet it.
“Yes, of course,” Arthur was saying. “Come at once.”
As her husband straightened up from the fireplace, Molly felt for his hand, feeling like a frightened little girl.
It was a shock how old Dumbledore looked. She’d always thought he looked old before, but now the Dumbledore who had been the head of house in her Hogwarts days looked very young compared to the man standing in her kitchen.
Her voice sounded croaky and under-used. “Can I get you some tea, Professor?”
“Please, Molly, call me Albus.” His voice was old, too. It sounded ancient and weary and sorrowful. Molly wanted to care for the old man, but at the same time had the urge to push him from her carefully-crafted, but oh so frail, world of safety.
“I’m afraid, Molly, that I bring you some grave news.”
There was a gentleness and sadness in his long, worn face which struck her as more awful than any sight she could remember seeing. She was suddenly more afraid than she had ever been before. When he told her that Gideon and Fabian were dead it was almost a relief to hear the words.
She was numb while her old professor tried to explain that they had fought bravely, that they had been outnumbered, that they had been heroic. She didn’t care. They were dead heroes now. How could people as funny and as energetic as her brothers - the little boys she had bossed about and played with as a girl - no longer be alive? As the fire turned green and Dumbledore left, she sank to the ground, feeling all the energy, all the hope and life and goodness run out of her.
“Oh, Molly,” Arthur said, his voice hoarse and rough. She felt his arms around her and pressed her face hard into his shoulder, trying to smother the chokes and screams that were fighting their way up through her chest for, in the back of her mind, she knew that she must not wake the children.
The next morning Molly was up earlier than usual, having spent the night in tears, in anger, grief, disbelief and, finally, determination.
When Arthur came down he looked pained.
“You should be in bed,” he said. “I should stay here. You need someone to look after you.”
Molly shook her head. “They need you at work.” She was comforted by the usual flash of pride she felt in the fact that they relied on Arthur so. “I’ll ask Auntie Muriel to pop round for a little while. I’ll be all right.”
Just saying that she’d be all right made her want to dissolve into tears again, but she stopped herself in time, kissed Arthur goodbye, and watched as he reluctantly left the house. She heard movements upstairs and knew that the twins must be awake. Hurrying to the fire, she tossed a little powder into the flames, battling back the guilt at waking Auntie Muriel so early. Her aunt was rather bewildered to be roused, but once Molly had explained what had happened, the tears rising unpleasantly again, Auntie Muriel was round in a flash.
There was no time for a retelling of events, or for any mutual comfort, as the crashes and shouts from upstairs meant that the household was getting up. Molly didn’t know how to face her children. Her smile over breakfast felt wobbly and forced, and Bill wanted to know what was wrong right away. She fobbed him off by saying she wasn’t feeling well. Breaking the news would have to be saved for a calmer time.
“You’d better go back to bed,” Auntie Muriel said, when the children were romping in the sitting room under Captain Bill and Lieutenant Charlie’s command.
Molly tried to smile again. “I think I’ll go for a walk. Just for an hour to clear my head, if you can watch the boys. I’ll take Ron.”
Her aunt frowned at the frosty window. “You’ll catch your death,” she said, and then realised her mistake and pursed her lips.
Molly seized the advantage, bundled up Ron, and hurried away from the house.
She had not seen Hogwarts for more than twelve years. The grounds appeared eerily the same, and she reflected how much she had changed from when she had been a pupil here as she walked up to the castle. With every crunch of her foot upon the frost she questioned her judgement. Was this her choice? Was she being too selfish? Was she being too afraid? She had the right, at least, to make her opinions known. She had to think of her children. She saw them in her mind, a sea of young faces. She thought of a seven year-old Gideon trying to be a man and not cry when she left to go to Hogwarts. Of Fabian running to her when his Puffskein died. Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred, George, Ron and the baby inside. She thought of what they were and what they would become. She had to keep them safe. On entering the castle the warmth hit her cold cheeks and nose, and Ron stirred in her arms but remained quiet. Lessons had started; the hallways were clear and her footsteps echoed as she made her way up and round, heading for the headmaster’s office, only hoping that Dumbledore used the same one that Dippet had done.
She didn’t know the password, and the gargoyle wouldn’t let her in without it, even when she whispered that it was to do with an order. She stood back, clutching Ron who seemed to get heavier every minute, and was at a complete loss. In her eagerness to get to her old professor she hadn’t thought that he might not be able to see her. She pressed her lips to the top of Ron’s head and wished she was at home with Arthur and the children and that she was telling him that she was going to have another baby, and that the dreadful war would go away.
“Molly?”
She hadn’t noticed Dumbledore’s approach. She raised her head.
“I wanted to talk to you, Professor.”
He smiled thinly. “It has been a long time since you were a pupil in my class, Molly. Please, come up to my office.”
She followed him up the moving spiral stairs, shifting Ron from one hip to the other until he started to cry.
“Ah,” Dumbledore said, stretching out a long-fingered hand to grasp Ron’s. “The latest Weasley to grace our book.” He nodded to a vast book and quill in the corner.
“Yes,” Molly said, feeling rather foolish. “And there will be another in August or September.”
Dumbledore smiled. “Congratulations.”
Molly looked down at her feet, and then braced herself and looked up at his face. She was not a little schoolgirl any more. She was a mother and a wife and she needed to protect her family. Dumbledore was looking at her as if he could read all her thoughts and feelings.
“Albus,” she said, “I need to talk to you about Arthur and the … the order that Gideon and Fabian were in.” She took a deep breath. “I don’t know much about it, but I know that’s why they were there, last night, and I know that if you asked him, that Arthur would join it.”
Dumbledore began to speak but, recklessly, she continued. “I know it sounds selfish and cowardly, but I want to ask you not to invite Arthur to join. He’d do it willingly - and so would I - but the children need him. They’re so young, and I … we … couldn’t manage if anything happened to Arthur.” She looked into the inscrutable blue eyes. “We’ll do anything else we can to help, but please don’t ask that of my family.”
Dumbledore looked steadily back at her and then nodded. “Very well, Mrs Weasley. I shall do as you ask.”
*****
After the Triwizard Tournament, once Fudge had left the Hospital Wing in a fury, Dumbledore turned to look at the group around Harry’s bed.
“There is work to be done,” he said. “Molly … am I right in thinking that I can count on you and Arthur?”
Molly was shaken, angry and appalled by the night’s events. She was frightened too. This would be a return to the years of war and terror and slaughter. There was a difference this time, though. Hers was no longer a fledgling family. They were growing into fighters now, and it was time to give what she had asked to be spared fourteen years before. She was ready.
“Of course you can,” she said.
Author: antonia_east
Words: 2200
Rating: PG
Summary: In January 1981 Molly Weasley receives some bad news and makes a hard decision.
Author's Notes: Written for the genfic challenge. My prompt was to explain why the Weasleys were so loyal to Dumbledore. What had he ever done for them?
The title is a line from John Donne's Valediction Forbidding Mourning.
Molly’s legs almost gave way as she lowered herself into her chair and, at long last, allowed herself the luxury of a heating charm on her slippers. It was achingly cold outside, and she hoped that Arthur was at the office, rather than out on a raid. She settled comfortably into the armchair, making sure to hold on to consciousness. She couldn’t fall asleep before Arthur came home. She wanted him to have a hot meal and some pleasant conversation after his hard day’s work. She knew that if he were to find her asleep, kind man that he was, he wouldn’t wake her, even though these late evenings were the only scraps of time they managed to spend together. She sighed a little, letting the breath hiss cool and slow from between her lips. Her world was made up of screaming children’s voices and hushed adults’ ones. She found flitting between the playful, demanding world of her children and the fearful and equally-demanding world outside exhausting. She closed her eyes - just for a minute - and savoured the stillness and silence of the house.
It wasn’t to remain silent for long. Ron, luckily in the cot next to Molly’s chair, started up a plaintive wail. She picked him up quickly, before any of the others woke up. Bill, old enough to realise much of what was going on around him and itching to go to Hogwarts to learn how to fight back like his uncles, had acquired the habit of bounding downstairs at the slightest noise, with a sleepy Charlie at his heels. Percy, though too young to know why, had picked up on the fear that hung in the air, bitter in every lungful. It had made him anxious; he always quested for answers. The twins seemed blissfully unaware, which was a blessing, but a tiring one. Molly grimaced as she unwrapped her shawl and unbuttoned her cardigan. The twins were firmly ensconced in their ‘terrible twos’, and she rather thought that they would stay there for some time to come.
“You’re my peaceful boy, aren’t you?” she said to the now-suckling baby. If only they stayed like this, sweet and manageable. So utterly unaware of the world outside, and in such complete need of protection from it. Molly could remember Fabian at that age, and if she peered into the depths of her childhood memories, a faint sense of Gideon, the ‘new baby’ too. They were grown into men, now. Silly, boyish, impossible, impulsive, clever, brave men who were fighting for what was right and good. They were keeping her and her husband and their six children safe. At this last thought, Molly blinked and looked down at Ron.
“I’ve got a surprise for your daddy,” she said. Ron paid no attention, but Molly hugged her youngest child tighter to herself and smiled.
Ron was asleep again - such a restful baby after the twins - when Arthur’s hand on the clock moved from work to travelling to home. Like every day, Molly felt a release of tension that she had not realised was there. They were all safe, then. Safe for one more night.
Arthur looked greyer every time he came home from work. Molly didn’t know how Gideon and Fabian managed to appear so cheerful; their work was much more dangerous than Arthur’s. Her stomach clenched and she pushed the feeling away, busying herself with the stove and the kettle.
“They must give you some time off soon,” she whispered. “I know there’s a lot to do, but surely they realise that you’ll be better able to do it if you’ve had some rest.”
Arthur rested his elbows on the table and hunched forward. “There’s no time for anyone to have a rest,” he said, “and there are many who need it more than I do. Few people have such a happy and comfortable home to come back to.”
Molly put the kettle down and kissed him. It wasn’t quite true: she worried about him at work and she believed that he worried about her and the children. There was never quite enough money to go round either, especially with Bill’s school fees to find next year.
“Actually, Arthur, I needed to talk to you about …”
“Molly! Arthur?”
The teaspoon, which had been carrying a sugar lump to Arthur’s mug, dropped onto the table with a dull clatter. Molly felt a twisting in her gut as she saw Albus Dumbledore’s head suspended in the flames. Molly reluctantly followed Arthur to the fireplace. She wanted to ignore the call and run far away from it. She wanted to take her family and run somewhere safe.
This was it. This was the call she had been dreading ever since Gideon and Fabian had made some very cryptic hints about why they spent so much time in the company of Aurors and Dumbledore. Dumbledore wanted Arthur. Molly knew it, and she knew just as emphatically that if Arthur were called then he would have to go, because he was a good man and a brave one. And yet it would mean leaving her and the children. It would mean so much more danger and Molly did not think she would have the courage to meet it.
“Yes, of course,” Arthur was saying. “Come at once.”
As her husband straightened up from the fireplace, Molly felt for his hand, feeling like a frightened little girl.
It was a shock how old Dumbledore looked. She’d always thought he looked old before, but now the Dumbledore who had been the head of house in her Hogwarts days looked very young compared to the man standing in her kitchen.
Her voice sounded croaky and under-used. “Can I get you some tea, Professor?”
“Please, Molly, call me Albus.” His voice was old, too. It sounded ancient and weary and sorrowful. Molly wanted to care for the old man, but at the same time had the urge to push him from her carefully-crafted, but oh so frail, world of safety.
“I’m afraid, Molly, that I bring you some grave news.”
There was a gentleness and sadness in his long, worn face which struck her as more awful than any sight she could remember seeing. She was suddenly more afraid than she had ever been before. When he told her that Gideon and Fabian were dead it was almost a relief to hear the words.
She was numb while her old professor tried to explain that they had fought bravely, that they had been outnumbered, that they had been heroic. She didn’t care. They were dead heroes now. How could people as funny and as energetic as her brothers - the little boys she had bossed about and played with as a girl - no longer be alive? As the fire turned green and Dumbledore left, she sank to the ground, feeling all the energy, all the hope and life and goodness run out of her.
“Oh, Molly,” Arthur said, his voice hoarse and rough. She felt his arms around her and pressed her face hard into his shoulder, trying to smother the chokes and screams that were fighting their way up through her chest for, in the back of her mind, she knew that she must not wake the children.
The next morning Molly was up earlier than usual, having spent the night in tears, in anger, grief, disbelief and, finally, determination.
When Arthur came down he looked pained.
“You should be in bed,” he said. “I should stay here. You need someone to look after you.”
Molly shook her head. “They need you at work.” She was comforted by the usual flash of pride she felt in the fact that they relied on Arthur so. “I’ll ask Auntie Muriel to pop round for a little while. I’ll be all right.”
Just saying that she’d be all right made her want to dissolve into tears again, but she stopped herself in time, kissed Arthur goodbye, and watched as he reluctantly left the house. She heard movements upstairs and knew that the twins must be awake. Hurrying to the fire, she tossed a little powder into the flames, battling back the guilt at waking Auntie Muriel so early. Her aunt was rather bewildered to be roused, but once Molly had explained what had happened, the tears rising unpleasantly again, Auntie Muriel was round in a flash.
There was no time for a retelling of events, or for any mutual comfort, as the crashes and shouts from upstairs meant that the household was getting up. Molly didn’t know how to face her children. Her smile over breakfast felt wobbly and forced, and Bill wanted to know what was wrong right away. She fobbed him off by saying she wasn’t feeling well. Breaking the news would have to be saved for a calmer time.
“You’d better go back to bed,” Auntie Muriel said, when the children were romping in the sitting room under Captain Bill and Lieutenant Charlie’s command.
Molly tried to smile again. “I think I’ll go for a walk. Just for an hour to clear my head, if you can watch the boys. I’ll take Ron.”
Her aunt frowned at the frosty window. “You’ll catch your death,” she said, and then realised her mistake and pursed her lips.
Molly seized the advantage, bundled up Ron, and hurried away from the house.
She had not seen Hogwarts for more than twelve years. The grounds appeared eerily the same, and she reflected how much she had changed from when she had been a pupil here as she walked up to the castle. With every crunch of her foot upon the frost she questioned her judgement. Was this her choice? Was she being too selfish? Was she being too afraid? She had the right, at least, to make her opinions known. She had to think of her children. She saw them in her mind, a sea of young faces. She thought of a seven year-old Gideon trying to be a man and not cry when she left to go to Hogwarts. Of Fabian running to her when his Puffskein died. Bill, Charlie, Percy, Fred, George, Ron and the baby inside. She thought of what they were and what they would become. She had to keep them safe. On entering the castle the warmth hit her cold cheeks and nose, and Ron stirred in her arms but remained quiet. Lessons had started; the hallways were clear and her footsteps echoed as she made her way up and round, heading for the headmaster’s office, only hoping that Dumbledore used the same one that Dippet had done.
She didn’t know the password, and the gargoyle wouldn’t let her in without it, even when she whispered that it was to do with an order. She stood back, clutching Ron who seemed to get heavier every minute, and was at a complete loss. In her eagerness to get to her old professor she hadn’t thought that he might not be able to see her. She pressed her lips to the top of Ron’s head and wished she was at home with Arthur and the children and that she was telling him that she was going to have another baby, and that the dreadful war would go away.
“Molly?”
She hadn’t noticed Dumbledore’s approach. She raised her head.
“I wanted to talk to you, Professor.”
He smiled thinly. “It has been a long time since you were a pupil in my class, Molly. Please, come up to my office.”
She followed him up the moving spiral stairs, shifting Ron from one hip to the other until he started to cry.
“Ah,” Dumbledore said, stretching out a long-fingered hand to grasp Ron’s. “The latest Weasley to grace our book.” He nodded to a vast book and quill in the corner.
“Yes,” Molly said, feeling rather foolish. “And there will be another in August or September.”
Dumbledore smiled. “Congratulations.”
Molly looked down at her feet, and then braced herself and looked up at his face. She was not a little schoolgirl any more. She was a mother and a wife and she needed to protect her family. Dumbledore was looking at her as if he could read all her thoughts and feelings.
“Albus,” she said, “I need to talk to you about Arthur and the … the order that Gideon and Fabian were in.” She took a deep breath. “I don’t know much about it, but I know that’s why they were there, last night, and I know that if you asked him, that Arthur would join it.”
Dumbledore began to speak but, recklessly, she continued. “I know it sounds selfish and cowardly, but I want to ask you not to invite Arthur to join. He’d do it willingly - and so would I - but the children need him. They’re so young, and I … we … couldn’t manage if anything happened to Arthur.” She looked into the inscrutable blue eyes. “We’ll do anything else we can to help, but please don’t ask that of my family.”
Dumbledore looked steadily back at her and then nodded. “Very well, Mrs Weasley. I shall do as you ask.”
*****
After the Triwizard Tournament, once Fudge had left the Hospital Wing in a fury, Dumbledore turned to look at the group around Harry’s bed.
“There is work to be done,” he said. “Molly … am I right in thinking that I can count on you and Arthur?”
Molly was shaken, angry and appalled by the night’s events. She was frightened too. This would be a return to the years of war and terror and slaughter. There was a difference this time, though. Hers was no longer a fledgling family. They were growing into fighters now, and it was time to give what she had asked to be spared fourteen years before. She was ready.
“Of course you can,” she said.