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Chapter Twenty-Six—Ties
The way that Tom's eyes widened told Harry that he recognized the silver storm consuming Ron and Hermione. Even as Harry lifted and wove their magic, rapidly expanding a circle of protection around the Wizengamot to shield the people there, he tugged on the knowledge from Tom's mind.
A knot placed in the soul-bond. It could be charged with a single spell and would take effect at the proper time. And it most likely would consume the bond and the people who powered it with it.
Harry's mouth moved in a deep grimace that felt oddly detached from him. So Dumbledore had convinced Ron and Hermione to place an Ultimate Destruction Curse in their bond. This was like the roof collapse and the "war casualties" story all over again.
But one thing, Harry didn't mind being the same. And that meant he was going to save everyone in the room.
Everyone.
The circle of protection was complete in less than a second, and Harry leaped out in the next one, sending a stream of silver power pouring towards Ron and Hermione.
Harry! What the hell are you doing?
Harry ignored that, because it was a useless question. Tom knew very well what he was doing. He could read the intent in Harry's mind and magic and soul, and he should have known before this if he understood at all what sort of person Harry was.
Not just someone to sit back and let people destroy themselves, even if he had given up on his friendship with them. He'd saved strangers. Why couldn't he save people he knew?
That shield you set up is going to deflect the magic by sending it back on its casters! You'll break that shield if you spare them. The energy will have to go somewhere!
Harry didn't reply, because he had known that, and he had a plan for that, too. First he encircled Ron and Hermione in the same cool power that he'd flooded the Wizengamot with, and then he began to work.
As she dissolved, as her bones briefly caught on fire and the agony overwhelmed her mind, Hermione let herself sink into peace. At least she knew they would destroy Minister Riddle, and that meant millions of Muggles and Muggleborns would be safe. And if the Wizengamot was really as corrupt as Harry had hinted, this was a way to chop off the head of the snake, too. Start fresh, with new members…
The new future that she and Ron would never see. But then, they wouldn't have seen it from inside an Azkaban cell, either.
Hermione became aware that it was taking longer to dissolve into the pain and the nothingness than she had thought. She opened her eyes with a frown, and then snapped them open wide, staring.
In front of her, where she had thought there would be a wash of light and fire, there was a hovering shape. When she squinted, she thought she could make out the talons and fanned tail of a phoenix, and tears filled her eyes.
Was it Fawkes, come to save them? Or perhaps even another phoenix, an agent of fire and fate who believed they should live to continue the Order's work?
The bird's beak opened, and it sang a high, quivering note that made Hermione's bones creak in sympathy—which reminded her that she had bones. She caught her breath. Yes, it had to be a phoenix. No other mortal creature would have the strength to survive this.
But when the phoenix faced her fully, Hermione found herself looking into brilliant green eyes she had seen every day for seven years. Her mouth fell open, and she didn't know what to do. She could feel Ron hovering behind her, uncertain, but the sensation was dimmed, as if they had already gone part of the way to death.
If they were partway there, they couldn't come back, Hermione thought, calming a little. Not even Harry's power could resurrect them. He wasn't an actual phoenix.
But the power was sweeping around them, not burning them. Hermione shook her head and frowned. She tried to turn towards Ron to ask him what he thought was happening, but suddenly there was a tightness in her chest, or what was left of it, and she couldn't breathe.
There were floating pieces of silver and black in front of her now, and Hermione didn't understand. What was happening? How could this be—gathering them, holding them in, transforming them? She and Ron had triggered the Ultimate Destruction Curse. That meant there was no way they could come back.
But she kept seeing the silver and black pieces anyway, not the darkness or the light that should have come along with a transition to the afterlife. She pushed fretfully back into her bond with Ron, not understanding.
I think that he's—
But then the silver and black pieces curled around them in an explosion, and Hermione gasped, and part of her did go fleeting away down the brilliant white tunnel that she suspected led to death. She went willingly. She knew Ron would come with her, as all joined souls did, and they had at least done good in their very last moments.
More good than most of the people alive in the wizarding world right now have done.
Had someone asked Tom, with all his knowledge of magical theory, if what Harry was doing was possible, he would have said no unequivocally.
But here Harry was, gathering up the pieces of Granger and Weasley's soul-bond that the Ultimate Destruction Curse should have broken, and slamming them together, and flying as a phoenix after another one, and snatching it up, and bringing it back. He was keeping the shield he had woven around the Wizengamot from breaking, or destroying Weasley and Granger, by containing the curse that would have impacted it.
Tom had remained a silent observer so far, lending their joined power to the endeavor, but he stirred when he felt Harry's exhaustion pouring down the bond. If you continue to try to do this, he pointed out, you will have to drop the shield that is guarding the Wizengamot and us.
Harry turned towards him. Tom wasn't sure exactly how he was "seeing" him right now. It wasn't physical. Perhaps this was with the eyes of the soul. Harry looked half-human at best, with white talons and silvery phoenix wings coming out of his back. He was panting, and thick blood wound down from a cut on his temple. Tom controlled his rage and listened to Harry's response.
They—it's too much. It's too easy. For them to do this. To get out of punishment, and—they're mad, and they were my friends, and I want them back.
Tom nodded, understanding better than Harry would have thought he could, if the flicker of surprise down the bond was any indication. But you can do this only with my cooperation. If you try to destroy yourself rescuing them, then I will pull back on the magic.
Harry lowered his head and closed his eyes for a second, Power hung around them, contained, and Tom took a moment to study it. He thought he understood, now, what Harry had been doing. Harry had two concentric circles of silver, one on the outside forming a shield that surrounded the Wizengamot, one inside the first trapping the pieces of Weasley and Granger's bond and bodies from flying too far.
Let me save what I can, Harry whispered at last.
Of course, Tom said, and watched as Harry spread his talons and his wings and his magic, and collapsed the inner circle in on itself.
The pieces that had been trapped hovered there, then began to funnel back together, and the pieces that had been outside the ring began to soar away. Harry breathed steadily, and the tremors that coursed down their magic would have been invisible to anyone not bound to him.
Tom found himself oddly proud of that. Then he wanted to laugh. Harry was performing a literally impossible feat of magic, and Tom was proud of the fact that it wouldn't have looked nearly as effortful as it was from the outside?
Perhaps some people had a point about his priorities.
Harry clenched his hands together—and they were fully hands again, at least in this formulation, and not talons—and there was an odd, crunching slam, as though they were all inside a lift that had been falling down its shaft and had abruptly been stopped. Then Harry gasped and let the power go.
Tom blinked and found himself standing in the intact courtroom, with Weasley and Granger slumped senseless in their chairs. He studied them with a clinical eye. Weasley was missing a good chunk of his arm, Granger of her hair, and both of them had no left foot. But those were the kinds of injuries common in a Splinching, and St. Mungo's would be able to heal them.
"You brought them back as good as new," he muttered, and his stomach tightened. He wondered for a moment if Harry would have taken the same risk for anyone, or if his traitorous friends still held a special place in his heart.
"Not exactly."
Harry's voice was heavy and quiet. Tom glanced at him and frowned a little. Harry was leaning forwards with his hands on his knees and his head hanging down between them. Tom reached out to touch the back of his neck. Nothing was streaming to him down their bond at the moment, neither thoughts nor emotions.
He exhausted himself so much that he can't even use that magic. "Their injuries are bloodless and can be healed."
Harry swallowed and replied without trying to lift his head. "But they buried the curse in their bond. They used the bond's reservoir of magic to launch it. I—I brought back their bodies and their minds, but I couldn't save their bond."
Tom blinked. He had never heard of such a situation. There were people who died when their bond was severed, especially if it was newly complete, and sometimes people who died even if they had never met their soulmate when their mark became black-lined. But he didn't know what would happen if the bond was ended for two people at the same time and they were both still alive.
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't even think about using them in experiments of some sort, Tom. I won't allow it."
"You can't feel anything down the bond from me right now," Tom argued, because he was sure that was still true. He sat down next to Harry and conjured a cloak for him. As he had thought would be the case, Harry was trembling as much with cold as with exhaustion. His skin felt slick and icy to the touch.
Tom cast a Warming Charm as Harry tilted his head to look up at him a little and nodded. "But I know the way your mind works."
Tom shrugged. "Well, I will not be putting them in the Department of Mysteries. But an opportunity has presented itself that we didn't have before."
"Yes?"
"With their magic entwined with their bond like that, they are likely to be little better than Squibs. I am willing to let them live in the Muggle world if they take certain vows not to act against my regime again."
"What about—they committed murder and all that?"
Tom snorted. "I think the loss of magic worse than the loss of life, Harry, although I know not everyone will agree. And the Wizengamot already voted against execution." He ran his hand gently down Harry's neck and through his hair. "On the other hand, if they refuse to take the vows, it'll be Azkaban in any case. The Wizengamot might prefer that since they don't have the magic anymore to take the kinds of magically binding oaths a wizard would. Squibs can be bound, but not as tightly."
Harry sighed and leaned against him. "I know that you're letting this happen because it's me and because you don't care that much anyway, but thank you."
"You fought so hard to save their lives," Tom said lightly. His hand tightened on the back of Harry's neck for a second. "Would you do it for anyone who was being destroyed in that same way? Or only for them?"
"I'd do it for you," Harry whispered. "Sirius. My parents. A couple of the other people I grew up with, I think, although I'm not nearly as close to them since we left Hogwarts. But—not for everyone."
Tom nodded, satisfied. It was good to know that his soulmate wasn't that ridiculously self-sacrificing. The shield he had created for the Wizengamot was a different matter, since it had saved his life and Tom's as much as anyone else's. "Go to sleep, Harry."
"I want to be there when Ron and Hermione wake up."
"This time, I'll ask you for something. I don't want you there."
Harry pulled back and studied him for a moment. "I won't do anything else to try and save them. I don't even know what I could do."
"I know. But they've hurt you enough, and you made an enormous sacrifice for them."
"I didn't die. We didn't lose any of our bond or our magic."
"But you know we could have."
Harry continued to study him. Tom didn't move and kept a calm smile on his face. He would be as gentle with Harry as he needed to be, but he deserved to have this much after the risk Harry had taken.
Harry abruptly blew out his breath, and their bond flickered back to life between them, as gentle and fragile as the blue flames that sprouted whenever Tom touched his mark. He leaned up to kiss Tom, and his amusement and awe and greed danced through the air so thickly that Tom blinked in shock.
Even now, I can't believe someone would fight like that for me. I let this moment stretch longer than I should have because I wanted to feel it. Sorry.
Tom kissed him back, and then turned to the dazed members of the Wizengamot, keeping one hand on Harry's shoulder, while he gently tugged at the silver shield to collapse it. Given that he wanted to be the one who gave Harry everything that he had been denied for years, the slip was more than forgivable.
Hermione opened her eyes slowly, and then sat up as fast as she could—which turned into a grunting fall when she realized that magical bonds linked her to the hospital bed beneath her the way they had to the chair in the Wizengamot courtroom.
What the hell is going on?
She felt oddly dull and muffled, both in her senses and in her mind, as if she had been given one of a number of sleeping draughts. But she seemed to be wide awake. She turned to the side and saw that this looked like one of the healing wards at St. Mungo's, with Ron asleep on a bed next to her.
Hermione probably stared at him for a full five minutes before the next strange thing hit her.
She couldn't feel him.
Hermione's heart leaped to drumming life in her ears, and she tried to lunge off the bed. It didn't matter. The magical bonds tightened and pulled her back flat, and then she was breathing hoarsely, hands clamped over her mouth. She felt as if she was about to throw up.
They couldn't have—they couldn't have severed the bond. Not really. Otherwise either she or Ron or both of them would be dead. It was what happened with full-bonded partners.
She raised a shaking hand and reached towards him, although the bond around her wrist snatched her hand back to the mattress before it went too far. "Ron?"
"He's alive."
Hermione jumped and nearly shrieked. Then she glanced over to find Riddle, smooth bastard that he liked to present himself as, sitting in a chair near the wall with his legs crossed. He smiled when he saw her looking at him, and proceeded to stand and stretch, his arms rippling and shrugging and shaking, as if he was getting up after a long nap.
"How do you feel, Miss Granger?"
Hermione ignored the mock-solicitous question. "What did you do to us?" she demanded. "Reverse it right now!"
"Ah, well, that would require breaking all the laws of magic and conducting some sophisticated research in the next second," said Riddle, in a voice someone might have mistaken for sympathy if they couldn't see his cold eyes. "You see, no one has ever been in the situation you were in before, where you buried an Ultimate Destruction Curse in your bond but managed to survive it. The Healers have been beside themselves as they work to keep you alive and understand what happened. It's quite an exciting opportunity for them."
"You broke our bond because you hate us."
The next instant, she gasped, because it felt as though the cold coils of an anaconda were wrapped around her. Riddle smiled, but that was worse than him not doing it.
"You are alive with your bond broken because my bondmate strained his magic to the limits to keep your bodies and minds from flying apart."
Hermione looked wildly around the room, but didn't see Harry. She stared back at Riddle, and had to drop her eyes. His cold ones were too unpleasant to meet.
She licked her lips and managed to swallow. "And you let us live?"
"The Wizengamot did not vote for execution."
Hermione closed her eyes. "I wish you had let us die. I wish—I don't want to be alive if I don't have my soul-bond with Ron."
"Strange," Riddle said, his voice so light that Hermione really should have expected the verbal knife that came chopping in next. "You being unwilling to lead the kind of existence that you would have condemned Harry to for the rest of his life."
"We didn't know his soulmate was you."
Hermione thought she had managed to put sufficient venom in her voice, but it splashed against Riddle's mental defenses and collapsed as if it was water. Riddle chuckled and shook his head. "But once you did, you didn't want him to bond with me. Don't try to hide behind lies and evasions, Granger. After all, you were willing to destroy the entire Wizengamot, the entire government of the wizarding world, in order to prove a point."
"The government that wasn't democratically-elected!"
"Which was a point so minor to you that it hadn't even occurred to you until Harry told you." Riddle folded his hands behind his back, while Hermione reached for the bond with Ron again and again, and crashed against the bloody muffling of her senses, and fought tears. "And what would have happened to the wizarding world with no government?"
"Freedom!"
"Chaos." Riddle gave her a smile that Hermione also had to look away from. "Of course, that would be a minor point to you, considering that you had decided you wouldn't be alive to see it."
Hermione lifted her chin. "It was a pleasure and an honor when Professor Dumbledore asked us to put the curse in our bond."
"I'm sure it was."
Riddle turned, acting utterly uninterested now, and nodded to Ron. "You can wait for him to wake up. He's fine, physically. Then I'll have you both take the vows to never act against my regime again, and you can live in the Muggle world. The Wizengamot agreed that was a reasonable compromise, considering…everything."
His voice made Hermione's mouth fill with bile. "What are you talking about?"
"Haven't you noticed?" Riddle's eyes glittered at her. "Well, of course, it's harder to notice an absence than a presence." He waited, and Hermione clenched her fists in the bedsheets, and finally lost her temper and answered him.
"I know that you stripped Ron and me of our bond!"
"Not that. The Wizengamot will argue for a while about the wording of the vows that should be used, but we'll doubtless find some that are strong enough to bind a Squib."
Hermione reeled back in the bed, her hand over her mouth. "You can't—you can't—"
"I didn't take your magic," Riddle said, his voice horrifyingly gentle. "You did that yourselves, with the aptly named Ultimate Destruction Curse. I don't know of any cases where someone buried it in their bond and survived, so the loss of your bond was a surprise, but there have been a few cases where someone cast the curse fueled with their own magic and lived. They were always Squibs afterwards. How could you think your magic would survive?"
Hermione tried frantically to reach for her power, to make the slightest spark sing along her veins, and couldn't. There was only that odd muffled sensation.
"And that you live," Riddle said, "that you are able to go into the Muggle world alive at all, is because of my bondmate." The possessive tone in his voice would have disgusted Hermione under other circumstances, but barely registered now. "There has never been a case of someone reversing an Ultimate Destruction Curse or containing one, but there is now. Because, despite everything you did to him, he loves you that much."
"And you—you let him use that magic."
"In the moment, I don't know that I could have prevented him without suffering for it." Riddle shrugged. "But yes, I let him do it, and the only condition I made was that he rest when he was magically exhausted and not come near you for now."
"Why not?" Hermione's voice was so low that she honestly didn't know what she was feeling herself.
"Because you've done enough, don't you think?"
Riddle turned and vanished out the door of the room. Hermione was left staring after him, and then she gulped and looked over at the bed beside her with Ron still resting obliviously in it.
There was a realization pressing against the gates of her mind like someone pounding on a door. Hermione resisted it for a long time, not even consciously sure what it was, only knowing it would hurt.
And then it burst in, the gates fell, and she couldn't lie to herself anymore.
Harry still loves us. Riddle let him use that magic to save us.
Hermione buried her head in her hands and began to weep, while the rest of her thoughts traced out a relentless course. If Harry loved them, then he wasn't completely evil, and he wasn't as opposed to the goals of the Order as Hermione and Ron had thought.
And if Riddle had let Harry do this, then he was capable of mercy.
Hermione shuddered again and again, so lost in sobs that she didn't hear Ron when he began to wake up. He had to practically shout to get her attention. "Hermione! What's going on? And—why didn't I know?"
Hermione swallowed and turned to him, holding out her hand. Ron reached across the distance between the beds and clasped her wrist, and Hermione vaguely registered that the magical bonds tying them to the beds were long enough to permit that to happen—not something she would have expected.
Ron was staring at her, on the verge of panic, and Hermione had no doubt he was both trying to sense her thoughts and emotions and sending her his as hard as he could. She took a deep breath, and began to explain.
She would wait longer to explain the devastating revelation that—while she didn't doubt Riddle had horrible goals and she resented the fact that Harry was going along with them—they had been wrong about how evil both of them were.
And what else does that mean we've been wrong about?
"How is he?"
"No change since you were last here, Minister."
Tom nodded shortly and sat down beside Harry's bed. Honestly, it was the best news he could have expected. Harry was resting, still cradled in the magical slumber that both the Healers and Tom had renewed, and that meant he wasn't expending magic saving a kitten stranded in a tree or something.
Tom sighed. The sneering tone to his own thoughts was one he was no longer comfortable with. He reached out and smoothed down Harry's hair, tumbled across the pillow his head rested on.
A few weeks, and you've changed me.
The miracle who had changed him slept on, lips slightly parted. Tom knew the magical sleep was more or less impervious to interruptions, but he did turn sharply when he heard footsteps in the corridor outside. The surrounding rooms had been cleared of patients so that Tom's Aurors could stand guard.
But it was Harry's parents who pushed into the room, followed by Black, who avoided Tom's eyes. Lily Potter marched right to Harry's bedside and stared at Tom. Tom raised his eyebrows, but also raised his body, moving out of the way so she could sit down in the chair.
James gave him a quietly hostile glance and asked, "How is he?"
"Magically-exhausted," Tom said. "And recovering."
"What did he do that made him so exhausted? I thought after you—bonded—that no task was hard enough for him anymore."
"He saved his friends when they tried to blow up the Wizengamot courtroom and probably most of the Ministry with an Ultimate Destruction Curse buried in their soul-bond," Tom said mildly, and he did enjoy watching the way James Potter's face changed. "He saved the lives of everyone in the room, although he couldn't save his friends' bond or their magic." Tom shrugged. "Better that they live and go as Squibs into the Muggle world than stay in the wizarding one, even in Azkaban."
James was silent. Lily had reached out and laid a hand on Harry's forehead and was talking to him softly. Black fidgeted about for a second, then asked, "How did Albus convince Ron and Hermione to put a curse like that in their soul-bond? I thought—they were always good kids, not suicidal. I didn't think they would have agreed to that."
"Perhaps Dumbledore has more of a hold over them than he did you," Tom said. "You're older, and two of you had a child, which does change your priorities. Weasley and Granger are absolute fanatics. Being young and self-important can do that to you."
"They were important," Black said, his eyes downcast. "I mean, Hermione Granger's one of the most brilliant people I've ever met. And Ron Weasley was a strong magical presence and a strategy master."
Tom snorted before he could help himself. "You believe that Albus Dumbledore would allow someone else to plan his strategy?"
Black hesitated for a moment. Then he said, "And you think he would be that blind to where his advantage might lie?"
Tom nodded shortly. "I don't think that he trusted anyone but himself. You, as members of the Order, were pawns."
"And, of course, you would never do such a thing."
James was determined to argue with him, it seemed. Then again, Harry had survived and the problem of his friends was solved. Tom didn't feel much anger in himself as he gazed at Harry's father. "Of course I would. But I didn't create a group of people that I deliberately isolated from the rest of the world, infected with the conspiracy theory that they were fighting against a secret war, and praised as the only good people left."
"It wasn't like that."
"Yes, it was," Tom said peacefully. "And even you think it was, or you wouldn't have come away."
James turned from him with his jaw clenching, and focused on the bed. Tom just nodded and turned to leave. He didn't think Harry's parents and Black would hurt him or try to sneak him out of hospital.
"Riddle, wait a minute."
Black was walking after him. Tom nodded and turned to wait in the corridor, leaning against the wall. Black stood in front of him with his hands stuffed in his robe pockets and his eyes on the floor.
After a minute of that, Tom sighed impatiently. "Was there something you wanted, Black? I do have a country to run and a Wizengamot to reassure."
Black started and glanced at him. "I—Harry said something about how you want him to see a Mind-Healer."
"Of course I do. The aftereffects of growing up thinking he was evil because of something he was born with, if nothing else, merit that he sees one."
Black swallowed noisily. "Do you think." Then he apparently reached the end of that sentence and had to start over. "Once some of the legal ramifications are sorted out. Do you think you could arrange for me to see a different one, as well?"
Tom tilted his head. Well, he hadn't anticipated that request. But he nodded. There was no reason to refuse it, much like there was no reason not to leave Harry alone with his family. "Of course."
"You're really not as merciless as Dumbledore says."
Tom laughed before he could help himself. "Was that remark about wanting to see a Mind-Healer a test? To see what I would say?"
"Partially. But I'm beginning to think it would do me good. I just have—too much anger, and I'm afraid sometimes that I might lash out and…"
"If you hurt Harry, then you know that's the end."
Black nodded with a pensive look on his face, rather than the frightened or outraged one Tom would have expected. "I know. And I never want to do something like that to him. Thanks, Riddle." Then he turned and wen back into the hospital room.
Tom shrugged and kept walking. The bond between him and Harry was flickering softly, like candlelight, and that was all right with him. At least it was coming back to life, and for right now, neither memories nor his exhaustion were distressing Harry. He might even get an apology from Granger, though Tom wouldn't hold his breath for it.
Amelia Bones met him the minute he came through the Floo into the Ministry. "Where were you?" she demanded. "They've been looking for you all over! We have a situation on our hands."
"Which one is that?" Tom asked pleasantly as he fell into step beside her. He could think of several that might be exploding at the moment.
"Some of the Wizengamot members are demanding that your soulmate register exactly how powerful he is. They say that he's saved two buildings full of people now, and the registration should have been completed after the first one, but it wasn't, and they want to know why."
Tom felt his lips twitch. In truth, he thought, the members of the Wizengamot were probably much more annoyed at owing a life-debt to a half-blood. Even if they tried to claim that they owed Tom a life-debt instead since he and Harry shared magic, they would have to acknowledge that the intent to save them and the power that did so were Harry's.
Most of them know me well enough to realize it's the last thing that would occur to me.
"Very well," he said, and sped up a little when he got a chiding look from Amelia.
Molly stared at the front page of the paper and then leaned back against Arthur and closed her eyes. His arms were around her in an instant, and the contented, warm thrum of their bond surrounded them both.
"I never knew they were so far gone," Molly whispered. "Did we really not love Ron enough, that he would have sought distinction like this?"
"I don't think this was about distinction." Arthur's voice had something broken in the back of it, and Molly could feel his pain in their bond as well, dancing like lightning for a moment before he consciously pulled back, trying not to hurt her. "I think it was about believing in a leader and following him blindly wh-whether or not he should have."
"Maybe you're right," Molly said. "But then I still don't know why we didn't see it."
"We've been exiles so long, Molly. And you know that a lot of it must have happened at Hogwarts, where we wouldn't have seen it anyway."
Molly nodded slowly. She had also prided herself on raising their children as independent thinkers, so it wouldn't have been as though she was watching for signs of this in Ron. But perhaps she should have questioned Bill more closely about why he'd rejected the Order.
"So what do we do now?" Arthur whispered.
He had been the one who had made decisions like swearing to the Order first and when to complete their emotional bond. But he had left up to Molly other decisions, like how many children to have and how to teach them when they were still at home.
Molly stood and turned to face him. "We can't do anything about Ron and Hermione having lost their magic and their bond, or being exiled to the Muggle world."
Arthur nodded, sorrow and understanding in his eyes. Molly sighed, grateful that she wouldn't have to argue with him about it.
"So what we need to do now is discuss the terms of our surrender, keeping in mind that it won't be to save our son and daughter-in-law."
"Does it have to be surrender/" Arthur asked, the way Molly had expected him to ask. His hands were restless on her shoulders and in her hair. "I mean, I know that we can't keep on as we have been…but our neutrality…."
"Do you think they'll believe it, after how fiercely we fought them when we were part of the Order?" Molly kept her voice as gentle as she could. She knew Arthur was suffering.
Arthur closed his eyes. Then he shook his head a little.
Molly nodded back. "So we'll do what we can, and we'll try to make sure that the terms of our surrender are as favorable to our other children as we can. We just need to give up any idea of saving Ron and Hermione."
She did find it hopeful that Riddle hadn't killed them yet. That might mean Harry was beginning to temper him, the way Molly had wondered if he might be able to.
"What about Albus?"
"What about him?" Molly turned around fully to look at Arthur, and ignored the hesitant tremble of his fear that she could feel in the back of her mind. "I don't see why we should have any loyalty left to him after the way he used Ron and Hermione, and the way he's probably disappointed that things didn't work out the way he wanted them to."
"I didn't mean that. I just meant that we have some secrets that aren't bound by the Order's vows. Are we going to give those up?"
Molly sighed. Those secrets mostly concerned the way that the refuge for the Order had been constructed, and some of the investigations into the Muggle world that they'd done which Albus had pointed out could turn up evidence to show that Riddle's secret war was about to begin.
But Molly herself didn't see that much valuable in them. She and Arthur had been one part of establishing the refuge, but not a whole part. Even if she turned over all the notes that she'd made to Riddle, he wouldn't be able to reconstruct what the Order had done without capturing everyone who had participated.
"I was going to use them to buy us some consideration," she said quietly.
Arthur closed his eyes in pain. "This isn't the world I want to live in," he whispered.
"I know." Molly touched his hand, and did her best to pour soothing calm over their bond, which was vibrating between them now like an Augurey's feather in a windstorm. "I wish there was something we could do that was different, something that would make a difference. But things didn't turn out the way we wanted them to, and some of it may never have been real. And Albus has abandoned us. We have to make the stand that we can to save the rest of our family."
She didn't get a response from Arthur at first, but she hadn't really expected to. She just kept lightly touching his hand, lightly feeding him confidence, and finally Arthur nodded and whispered, "Then let's do it."
Molly went to gather up her notes and pack the clothes and other things they wouldn't be able to easily replace. She hoped the joy that swirled up from her side of the bond didn't distress Arthur too much.
After over six years of exile, they were finally going home.