Molly brushed her hair out her face and picked up the Daily Prophet which lied on the table. She hadn't even glanced at it before. She unrolled it and glanced at the cover. She shrieked and dropped the paper as the headline: SCENES OF TERROR AT THE QUIDDITCH WORLD CUP glared up at her over a picture of something she thought she never see again in her life: the Dark Mark. Her heart picked up tempo as she watched the snake twist sickeningly out of the skull.
The Quidditch World Cup…
Molly reached to pick up the newspaper. Her hands were trembling so badly that it took a minute to get a grasp on the paper. She held it as steady as possible and read the article, her white lips trembling.
It got worser as she went on. Soon, her hands were trembling so badly and her eyesight blurred too much for her to continue. Her heart had impossibly picked up an even faster pace that hurt her chest. Her whole body trembled and she gasped for air. Even though she couldn't see, the printed words seemed imbedded in her mind.
'Dark wizards running unchecked…several bodies were removed…'
"No..," Molly gasped, placing her hand on her chest. Her heart was twisting and aching; her lungs tightened painfully as strangled gasps clawed from her chest, attempting to pull air into her body.
Images of her family flashed through her mind. The cousins lost…her own husband fighting…her brothers leaving with wide grins on their faces…the last she would ever see them alive and whole…
'…several bodies were removed…'
"No…NO" Molly stumbled out the house into the yard. The smiling faces of her brothers turned into the mischievous faces of her twins. Mischievous grins that were not the last things she saw of them. Not the angry backs of them.
She couldn't see anything, but she felt the wet tears running down her cheeks, her frantic heartbeats. Her chest was on fire. A fire she couldn't quench with air, because no air was coming down her windpipe. She gasped for the nonexistent air.
'…several bodies were removed…'
Not her boys. Not without making up with them. No, nothing could happen to them. If the last thing she would remember was arguing with them over O.W.L.s…if that was the last memory they would have of her…
No. No, it couldn't be. She had to have faith. None could be dead. None of them.
She put both of her hands over her throbbing heart. She couldn't stop gasping for air. Air could not cure the pain if they were gone. Nothing would cure the pain.
She heard feet thudding up the lane. She wiped her eyes and peered through the dawn light, at the silhouettes making their way towards her. As they came closer, she counted ten of them. Red hair lit up in the morning light on several heads.
"Oh thank goodness, thank goodness!" Molly didn't even feel her body as she lurched forward. She ignore the agony in her chest as she flung her arms around Arthur's neck. "Arthur-I've been so worried-"
"You're alright, you're alive," she pulled away from him and stared around at the tired, anxious faces of her family. Her eyes stopped on Fred and George. She threw her arms around them, pulling them into a tight hug. "Oh boys!"
She began to sob as relief flooded through her and washed away the horror and fear. The pain in her chest didn't go all away. But she could deal with the remnants as long as she still felt the boys in her arms. Her whole family was alive. The pain would be the reminder she needed to keep her boys from following her brothers down the same path to the End.