The Phoenix Station came on just as Molly was putting her feet up, having just added peas to the enormous vat of vegetables steaming away atop the stove. She didn't need the enormous vat these days, but she couldn't bring herself to pack it away and get out the tiny pans she'd used back in the early days of her marriage. That would be like admitting Arthur and four of her children weren't ever coming home.

"Hello, and welcome back," came the familiar voice of Lee Jordan, almost as familiar as those of the three sons that remained to her. Molly stifled a smile and started pouring herself a cup of tea. "This is Leo, and you're listening to basically the same unpromising news you heard last night and would hear tomorrow if we weren't taking tomorrow night off, seeing as it'll be Christmas Eve and we'll all be too drunk to broadcast. First things first, disappearances: 21-year-old Percy Weasley, Junior Undersecretary to the Minister. I don't think anyone other than his poor old mother will be awfully upset if he stays disappeared, but do keep an eye out."

Molly's heart skipped a beat, and a splash of tea missed the cup and splattered all over the kitchen table. Not again. She couldn't lose another child. You-Know-Who (or that bastard, as she referred to him in the soothing privacy of her own head) had taken four from her, one way or another, and Percy was her favourite, for all she wasn't meant to have favourites.

"In Hogwarts news, Dumbledore's Army will still be recruiting next term."

That was good. Molly had heard off Tonks, who had it from Dedalus Diggle, who knew Hestia Jones in a somewhat more than professional capacity, that the Lovegood girl was in charge of the resistance effort at Hogwarts. She was a delicate little thing, by all accounts, and apparently took rather after her mother's side of the family; Pandora Selwyn had been three years below Molly at Hogwarts, and she'd been delicate too. Principled, though. Selwyns always stuck very firmly to their principles, such as they were. Now the Lovegood girl was gone, though, it had been touch and go whether anyone would step up.

"Convicted criminal Ronald Weasley's been spotted acting very friendly with the Head Girl, Miss Daphne Greengrass," Lee continued. "Now, I'm sure it comes as a surprise to nobody that Greengrass Senior is a Death Eater sympathiser. You may, however, be somewhat more horrified to learn that Weasley is rumoured to be an actual Death Eater."

"Quel surprise," Molly muttered, stirring sugar into her tea. She'd always had her doubts about whether it was really wise to have six brilliant sons one after the other. Ronnie had always felt inadequate, but had he really had to join the Death Eaters just to say he'd done something first for a change?

"We've been having a bit of a rash of weddings amongst the charming junior members of our unofficial Auror department," Lee carried on, "and theirs is just the latest; it was, in fact, this very morning. I'm told it was all very lovely. The ringbearer was young Arthur Fitzhenry, Harry Potter's illegitimate son by the delightful Ginny Weasley, whose involvement in that charming little scandal with the love potions earlier this year appears to have been very thoroughly swept under the rug by our dear leaders. Latest reports are that Miss Weasley, contrary to popular belief, is in the country and very well indeed, despite recently giving birth. We don't actually know whether Potter is a Death Eater or not, although considering the company he keeps I think we'll have to put him down as a definite sympathiser, so I'll restrain myself to saying that Miss Weasley is a bit loose."

A bit loose? The bloody cheek of it. Fourteen was no age to go about getting pregnant – although Merlin knew Molly couldn't talk, she'd not exactly been the most patient of witches – but it wasn't like Ginny was unfaithful.

"Moving on to missing persons," said Lee, "Muggle-born Dean Thomas, 17, left a safehouse in Morriston on Tuesday, accompanied by a goblin named Griphook, and has not yet reached his destination, which is in Bristol. Those of you who live in south-west Wales please keep an eye out. Dean is described as a tall black youth in green waterproof trousers and a blue anorak; Griphook is described as an unusually rude goblin.

"No advances yet on the case of 16-year-old Luna Lovegood, blonde, blue-eyed, last seen disembarking from the Hogwarts Express. Her father has been packed off to Azkaban for the terrible crime of good journalism; our sources say he's unlikely to be granted an appeal, but his printing press has been rescued and the Quibbler will not stop printing. Those of you in the Ottery St Catchpole area keep your eyes –"

There came a knock on the door. Molly turned the radio off, grabbed her wand from the kitchen counter, tiptoed over to the door, and peered through the keyhole. On her doorstep were two weary-looking hikers, one of whom was holding a bundle.

"Sorry," Molly ventured, "I think you must have the wrong address. The bed and breakfast is down in the village."

The hiker with the bundle laughed and threw his – her – hood back, revealing a bushy shock of bleached hair. "We'll go there if you like, Mrs Weasley."

"As I live and breathe," Molly blurted. "Come in, Hermione! You must be Neville. What in Merlin's name have you done to your hair, Hermione, dear? Take off your coats and get yourselves warm. You must be freezing."

"It is a bit nippy," said Neville Longbottom, taking off his coat and bag. He was a broad, rather handsome boy, just the sort no teenage girl should be sharing rooms with for months on end. But that was just what dear Hermione was doing. Modern girls were so liberated. Molly would never have dreamed of traipsing about the country with a boy she wasn't married to. "Hi, Mrs Weasley. It's nice to meet you at last. Ron's told me so much about you."

Molly put the kettle on. "All good, I hope?"

"Obviously," Hermione said, draping her coat over a chair. She was thinner than Molly had ever seen her, and there were big bags under her eyes. "Thanks for inviting us over. I know we're about a week late, but we had to do something in London and there just wasn't any time –"

"It's alright, dear," Molly said fondly. Hermione was an intelligent girl, principled, and she wouldn't be late without good reason. "Sit yourself down. Is this the baby, then?"

Hermione flushed and handed over the bundle. "Her name's Luna Veronica."

Molly peered down into the bundle. It contained a very small, ill-looking baby with the beginnings of brown hair. Her heart melted. "Oh, she's beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Takes after her mum. Who did you say the father was again?"

"I didn't," said Hermione, collapsing into a chair, rather closer to young Neville than propriety allowed. "It's – "

"She's mine," Neville said firmly; he had gone very red. "She's my little girl, aren't you, Ricky?"

Luna Veronica gurgled.

"How sweet," said Molly, mentally counting backwards on her fingers; having been through six pregnancies herself, she knew what most of the stages of pregnancy looked like. Hermione had been four months pregnant when Molly had last seen her, at Dumbledore's funeral back in June; that meant the baby had been conceived in February. Ron had been arrested in February. It stung to think of beautiful, clever little Hermione passing over Molly's dear sweet boy for Neville Longbottom without even the solace of being able to say that by that point he'd been a convicted criminal, but then there was no reasoning with teenage girls. "What surname have you given her? Do you plan to marry?"

"Oh, yes, soon," Hermione said distractedly. "Granger. Luna Veronica Granger. I want her to be proud of where she comes from."

"Don't talk like that," Neville said, squeezing Hermione's hand. "Of course she's proud of where she comes from. There's nothing wrong with being Muggle-born."

Hermione bit her lip. "But these days – oh, by the way, Molly, we heard about Charlie and Percy. We're really sorry."

"Percy's not dead quite yet," said Molly, praying it was true. "Now, will you two be joining me for dinner? I'll find you a basket for the baby – and a blanket – are you breast-feeding? You're rather thin for that, you know, and you shouldn't be gallivanting about the place and then doing it or you'll never get anything done."

"We take trains," Neville said. "Yes, we'd love dinner. We can't stay too long – we have to get over to France, see a man about a basilisk."

Molly stared. "Didn't Ron tell me there's a basilisk's skeleton under the school?"

"We can't get at it," Hermione said morosely. "There's a Caterwauling Charm over Hogsmeade. Didn't Emmeline Vance tell you? We ran into her in Upper Flagley last Thursday, when we were … never mind."

"No, I've not seen Emmeline since the Lupins' wedding," said Molly, handing Hermione back her daughter and setting out two more places at the table. "How is she? Are they still refusing to treat Death Eaters?"

Hermione shrugged. "I had Luna Veronica in a Muggle hospital in – oh, I don't know what it's called now. Yugoslavia. Lupin and Tonks tied the knot, then?"

"Who's Tonks?" Neville asked.

Molly explained.

"I heard Tonks' dad is on the run," said Hermione, face taut with worry. "Have you heard from him? Emmeline says she heard off Kingsley that Andromeda's just beside herself."

"We've not heard anything either way," Molly said. She didn't hear much anyway, locked up in the house with nobody but her sons to visit her. Order meetings these days were held in Fleur Delacour's scrubby little flat in Birmingham, with piles of greasy Muggle takeaway on the Formica-topped counters and drunken Muggles carousing in the background; Molly would rather have died than live in such a dump, but there was no reasoning with the young. "You know what I have heard? Ron's got himself married."

Hermione looked like she'd been punched in the stomach. "Who to?"

"A Miss Daphne something," said Molly; how was she meant to remember? It wasn't as if she'd ever met the chit. She was probably some simpering, repellently vapid little madam who made the Malfoys look progressive. "Has anyone told you Ginny named her child Arthur James?"

"The cheek of it," Neville said, scowling. "Going over like that and naming her child after good men like James Potter and your husband."

Molly could feel herself flushing. "Right, I think dinner's about ready. It's shepherd's pie, I hope you don't mind – let me see, I've got the best china somewhere –"

"You needn't," said Hermione. "Really, it's fine, Mrs Weasley."

"I don't have guests very often these days," Molly pointed out. "Besides, if anyone deserves the best china, it's the two people named in Dumbledore's will."

Both Hermione and Neville looked almost ashamed. Luna Veronica gurgled. Molly decanted the shepherd's pie and its accompanying train of vegetables into her best china, carried each dish in turn over to the table, and offered Hermione the first serving.

"Oh, thanks," said Hermione, and took a great dollop of shepherd's pie, almost as eagerly as Molly's own sons always served themselves. "Would it have been Greengrass? Miss Daphne Greengrass?"

"Perhaps," Molly said. She'd been at school with a boy named Greengrass. He'd been handsome enough, and done very well for himself, but nowadays he was gone rather to fat – Arthur had never liked him, had pointed him out once or twice, a rotund little man with a countrified wife and two golden-haired little girls with their noses up in the air. "Do you know her, then?"

Hermione's mouth twisted. "Yes, she's a friend of mine – or at least she was before You-Know-Who ruined everything." She speared a roast potato with uncharacteristic vitriol. "She's a Slytherin. I would've thought Ron would go more for Astoria, if he insisted on marrying a Greengrass – she's pretty, at least. And not a sapphic."

"And she's fifteen," Neville pointed out. "Daphne's older than Ron, right?"

"I don't know, and I don't care," Hermione said unconvincingly. "So, Molly, how are things? How's Luna Lovegood? We heard about what happened to her dad –"

"She's missing," Molly said, taking some more steamed carrots. "Disappeared from King's Cross. Tonks says they can't find her even with the Trace and Taboo full on. You know she's having Remus' baby?"

Hermione's eyes widened. "No! But Remus always said he didn't want children."

The rest of the meal passed in similar manner, Molly and Hermione gossiping over the bread-and-butter pudding and over big glasses of the blood-red French wine Fleur Delacour had pressed on Molly at Bill's funeral. Neville ate in silence and rocked the baby. She was a very quiet baby.

"I'll take her off your hands, if you like," Molly offered, pouring Hermione a third glass of wine. "It can't be easy, doing whatever Dumbledore wanted and carting a baby about."

Hermione and Neville exchanged looks.

"We've managed so far," said Neville, rather coolly.

Hermione glared at him. "Remember what we agreed? I'm not taking a baby into Azkaban, you know, and I'm not just leaving her with some poor Muggle baby-sitter who won't understand where we've gone. I don't want my daughter going into care."

"You're going to Azkaban?" Molly stared. "On purpose?"

"We need to speak to Mundungus Fletcher," Neville said, folding his arms. "He's in prison – isn't he?"

Molly really had to think about it; Mundungus always seemed to be just about to go to Azkaban, but most of the time he wriggled out of it. She had heard, though … "I wouldn't know. Leo doesn't talk about him."

"Leo?" Hermione repeated. "Who?"

"The fellow who does most of the talking on the Phoenix Station," Molly said.

Hermione and Neville stared at her.

"We don't have a radio that takes WWN," said Neville, in a small voice. "We've got a transistor we nicked off Hermione's dad, and we're lucky if we can get the BBC most days. Look, we'd be really grateful if you'd take the baby on New Year's – we're heading out to Azkaban, and even with the Dementors gone nobody wants to take a baby into a prison –"

"Of course I'll take her," Molly said, at once. She'd need milk from somewhere; cow's milk would do, if it was only for a few hours, and if Hermione didn't come back … well, she'd think of something. She'd raised seven children, after all, and Arthur's pension was just about enough for two. She wouldn't be able to hold so many dinners, but then nobody had much to celebrate anymore. Except Ron and Ginny. More than anything, she was hurt Ron hadn't thought to invite her to his wedding. Abhorrent Slytherin bride or no, Molly was his mother, and she'd wanted to be at his wedding.

Hermione smiled. "Thanks, Molly. And, um, I didn't want to ask, but may we stay the night? It's just we don't want to head out now it's dark –"

"Of course you can," said Molly. "I'll make up beds for you – you can have Ginny's old room, Hermione, and Neville, you can go up in Ron's old room, it's a bit of a trek but you'll be perfectly comfortable if you ignore the ghoul. Oh, I think I'd best dust first –"

There came a knock on the door. "Madam Weasley?"

Molly would have recognised the voice anywhere; it was Harry Potter's.

"Oh, fuck," said Hermione, in a low whisper. "That's Harry, isn't it?"

Neville nodded; he had gone bone-white.

"You two have to go," Molly said, heart beating a mile a minute. "Take the baby and go out the back door. The Anti-Apparition spell ends out in the orchard."

Hermione scooped up the baby. "What about you?"

"I'll be fine," said Molly. "I'm just a harmless old widow woman."

"Doubt that," Neville said, grimacing. "C'mon, Hermione, let's go."

The two of them wriggled into their coats, heaved their bags over their shoulders, and headed out into the living room. Molly swallowed her fear and went to answer the front door.

Harry Potter was, indeed, standing on Molly's doorstep, with the sleeve of his black dress robes rolled up to display his Dark Mark. Behind him stood seven hooded figures, two of whom Molly reckoned couldn't yet be out of Hogwarts; all eight of them had their wands lit. "Madam Weasley?"

"Good evening, young man," said Molly, trying not to sound as contemptuous as she felt; really, the lengths some people would go to. In her day You-Know-Who at least hadn't gone around putting his ridiculous Mark on schoolchildren. The world was going to pot … and Molly was turning into her Aunt Muriel. Fantastic. "May I help you?"

"Oh, yes, we were wondering if we could come in," Harry asked; his green eyes were flinty behind his glasses. "Ask you a few questions."

Molly had heard rumours about what the Death Eaters counted as asking a few questions; apparently they'd only wanted to ask Charlie a few questions too. "No, sorry, I'm afraid you can't. What was it you wanted, dear?"

"Mum," said the tallest of the hooded figures, "please don't make trouble."

Molly stared. "Ron?"

The figure lowered his hood. It was indeed her little boy, his eyes just as haunted as they'd been in the picture that had been plastered across the Daily Prophet back in February. Only Phoenix Station and The Quibbler still referred to Ron as 'convicted criminal Ronald Weasley', but looking at the mess her baby boy had become, Molly could well believe they were right. "Hi, Mum."

"Oh, shut it, Ron," said Harry. "We were just wondering if you'd seen Hermione."

"Hermione who?" Molly asked.

Ron groaned.

"Hermione Granger, Mrs Weasley," Harry said, stony-faced. "Muggle-born girl, about this tall, ugly hair, slatternly. Probably with a baby."

Slatternly. He did have a nerve, didn't he? "No, sorry, not since June. Goodnight."

"Colloportus!" one of the Death Eaters said.

Crack. Crack.

Never in Molly's life had she been more pleased to see her twins.

"Hey, you two," said Harry, taking a step back; he didn't look pleased to see them. "Lovely evening, isn't it?"

"Lovely evening to harass our mum, you mean?" Fred asked, his expression ugly.

"Get the fuck off our mum's doorstep, you traitor," George snarled.

Molly couldn't even bring herself to scold them for their language.

"Now, don't be rude," Harry said, although he did step off the doorstep. "Or we might have to tell you off, eh, Ron?"

The Death Eaters were all throwing back their hoods now. The Carrow twins. Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange. A pointy-faced youth who just had to be Lucius Malfoy's son. And there, right on the end, Antonin Dolohov, who had helped murder Fabian and Gideon.

"You traitorous bastard!" screeched Fred – George – whichever.

"What have you done?" Molly demanded. Didn't Ron remember? She knew he'd never met Fabian and Gideon, but – and here was Percy, glasses askew. "Thank Merlin you're alright!"

Percy's eyes flitted from Molly to the twins to the Death Eaters. His face closed off. He calmly removed his robes and draped them over the Flutterby bush. "Stop harassing my mother, will you?"

Bellatrix let out a mad giggle and set the roof on fire.

"Aguamenti!" Molly shrieked, pointing her wand up at the thatch; Hermione and Neville would be well away by now, if there was any justice in the world.

Percy raised his wand.

"Alright," said Harry calmly, "let's kill some Weasleys."

And the night lit up with spells. Molly, toe to toe with both Harry and the sallow young Malfoy, caught only flashes of what came next. Everywhere she looked, it seemed, one of her sons was fighting; once she even caught a flash of long red hair which could have, in another life, been Bill. Percy and Ron were fighting each other, an unfair battle if Molly ever saw one, and the twins were back to back, fending off the Carrow twins, the Lestranges and Dolohov. That was just the way Fabian and Gideon had died; Molly suspected this was the Death Eaters' idea of a joke. Occasionally, through a gap, she caught sight of motionless figures on the sidelines.

"Help!" Molly shrieked. "Don't just stand there!"

Malfoy glanced over his shoulder – and fell, from a bright green spell that had not come from Molly's wand. Nor, Molly prayed, had it come from one of her sons. She'd raised them better than that. So the Death Eaters were killing each other – or the watchers were. Maybe it was the Fawcetts. They'd always been pugnacious – but no, there was a flare of flame from the other side of the valley, from Redwall, where the Fawcetts dwelt mostly blamelessly, and another from the Diggorys' little cottage right down by the village.

"Bastards!" Molly screeched. Hadn't Amos and Ida suffered enough?

"I don't think so, madam," yelled a dark-haired young Death Eater who definitely hadn't been there when the Death Eaters had arrived. Molly recognised his rabbity face; he had been beside Ginny on the WANTED posters which had so briefly disgraced the family name. He'd been there when Ginny had miscarried too. She vaguely remembered he'd been introduced as something Nott … of course he was a Nott. He had one of those fanatical smiles that could hardly belong to anyone but a Nott. "We're all quite legitimate here."

Some people just didn't understand war. "Rictusempra!"

The Nott boy jumped nimbly aside. "Ron! Watch your back!"

But it was too late; Percy had finally managed to get a spell past Ron, who had completely disappeared.

"Sea urchins," the Nott boy scoffed. "How unoriginal – someone come and transfigure him back, we haven't covered this yet!"

There was a screech. Molly turned and saw, as if in a dream, Harry falling. And behind him, looking absolutely furious, was a tall, white-faced figure who had to be You-Know-Who –

"Finish this before the Order arrive," said You-Know-Who curtly, his high voice carrying over the fight, and Disapparated.

The Nott boy stared. He looked wrong-footed, like someone who'd only just realised what sort of monster he was fighting for. "But –"

Molly Stunned him and moved on to Rodolphus, who had just finished turning Ron back into a person.

"What the fuck?" Ron was screaming, at nobody in particular. "Who the fuck did that? Who killed Harry? Someone fucking killed Harry!"

"Oh, shut up, you daft twit," said Rodolphus, batting aside Molly's spells with very little effort. "Come on, you two, finish them off already, they're only nineteen. Or do I have to make Weasley do it – good going, Black, you've been Stunned by a twenty-one-year-old. Interested in joining the Death Eaters, young man?"

Percy bared his teeth and sent a spell barrelling at Dolohov, who rolled his eyes, dodged it, and retorted with a sickly purple jet of light. It hit Percy full in the chest and he went down, guts spilling everywhere.

No, Molly thought, stomach sinking, please, no …

One of the twins tossed something at Dolohov, and the other twin slashed his wand across the air in front of the two Carrows. Both Carrows went down, and Dolohov did too.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," said Rodolphus, rolling his eyes. "Avada kedavra! Avada kedavra! Enervate! Enervate! Right, let's see what I can do about you three –" And, seemingly having forgotten that Molly was even there, he bent and began to tend to Dolohov and the Carrows.

"Incarcerous!" Bellatrix giggled. Molly dodged, not fast enough; the ropes coiled themselves around her and brought her crashing to the ground. "Ooh, too slow!"

Molly groped for her wand. Surely it was around here somewhere. Bellatrix was three years younger than her; surely she couldn't be that awful an opponent –

"Crucio!" Bellatrix said, still giggling. And then there was only the pain.

An eternity later, Bellatrix released her.

"Oh, come on, Black, stop playing with your food," said Rodolphus, crouched at Dolohov's side. "Nott, do me a favour and get Antonin to St Mungo's – I'll see what I can do about these two, but it's not looking good. Stop screaming, Weasley, and help Nott. Antonin weighs a bloody ton, so you might as well both go – then head over to the Diggorys', Yaxley's going to need reinforcements."

Molly watched, through tears and pain, as her son amiably helped the Nott boy hoist Dolohov to his feet and Apparate away.

"Crucio!" Bellatrix screeched again – but the spell stopped almost at once.

"Mrs Lestrange," said the firm, pleasant voice of a woman, "you're overwrought. Perhaps you should go home. I'm sure Rodolphus and I can finish up here."

Bellatrix burst into gasping cackles. "You won't do it!"

"I will," said the unknown witch. "Go home, Mrs Lestrange. Go to your sister and tell her that her son is dead."

"Good riddance," Bellatrix said, but a second later there was a loud crack of Apparition.

A pair of expensive shoes moved into the range of Molly's vision. They were on the feet of an expensively-robed woman with the Dark Mark glowering on the deathly pale flesh of her freckled arm. But there were only two female Death Eaters; Alecto was down and Bellatrix was gone, and in any case neither of them was freckled. Dread pooled in Molly's stomach. She forced herself to crane her neck and peer up into the Death Eater's face.

"Hello, Mum," said Ginny. Her hair was longer than Molly had ever seen it, and the bags under her eyes looked like slices of liver sausage. She hadn't yet taken off her engagement ring, and it twinkled in the dull light coming off the blaze at the Fawcetts'. "I'm sorry." She raised her wand. "A – avada kedavra!"