oh my god oh my gOD OH MY GODDDDDDD
(Disclaimer: See Chapter 1.)
Chapter 29:
When You're Living On Your Knees
"The world had ended, so why had the battle not ceased, the castle fallen silent in horror, and every combatant laid down their arms? Harry's mind was in free fall, spinning out of control, unable to grasp the impossibility, because Fred Weasley could not be dead, the evidence of all his senses must be lying -"
The words were staring back at her. She had looked at them over and over again, trying to make sure she had been reading them correctly. She had turned the page to confirm that it was true - as much as she didn't want it to be.
But, as many had realized before her, it was true.
Fred Weasley was destined to die.
The tears had come much like the rain that had brought the children to London the very first time they went. First one, then another, then two simultaneous drops, then a steady stream pouring from her eyes. She clutched the book to her chest and cried.
"Molly?" someone said behind her. "Are you alright?"
She didn't answer.
"Molly?" The voice was getting closer. "What's that book that you're holding?"
Blinded by tears, she gave the book to the person whose voice she had been hearing.
"Now, let's see," the person said. By now, Molly could tell that it was male. Jonah, maybe?
"...seemed to...oh, the sentence starts on the other page," the person said. "Okay, here we go - Harry looked around - wait, you have a book about Harry?"
Molly nodded, almost in shock.
"Harry looked around and his heart…" The person turned the page. "...seemed to fail: Death Eaters had penetrated Hogwarts - wait a minute, what's going on here?"
Molly didn't answer. She still didn't know who the person was, but now she knew that it definitely wasn't Jonah.
"Fred and Percy - oh, that's cool - had just backed into view, both of them dueling masked and hooded men. Harry, Ron, and Hermione ran forward to help: Jets flew in every direction and the man dueling Percy backed off, fast: Then his hood slipped and they saw a high forehead and streaked hair - 'Hello, Minister!' bellowed Percy, sending a neat jinx straight at Thicknesse, who dropped his wand and clawed at the front of his robes, apparently in awful discomfort. 'Did I mention I'm resigning?' - Wait, is that our Percy?"
Molly nodded.
"Finally, the idea of joking's caught up to him," the person said. "Okay, let's keep on going - 'You're joking, Perce!' shouted Fred - that's literally what I just said - as the Death Eater he was battling collapsed under the weight of three separate Stunning spells. Thicknesse had fallen to the ground with tiny spikes erupting all over him; he seemed to be turning into some sort of sea urchin. Fred looked at Percy with glee."
Molly couldn't help but cringe, knowing what was coming.
"'You actually are joking, Perce…I don't think I've heard you joke since you were -" The air exploded."
The person decided it would be funny to make a loud booming noise, as if an explosion was going off. Molly had a bad feeling she knew who the person was.
"They had been grouped together, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Fred, and Percy, the two Death Eaters at their feet, one Stunned, the other Transfigured; and in that fragment of a moment, when danger seemed temporarily at bay, the world was rent apart. Harry felt himself flying through the air, and all he could do was hold as tightly as possible to that thin stick of wood that was his one and only weapon, and shield his head in his arms: He heard the screams and yells of his companions without a hope of knowing what had happened to them - okay, now what's going on?"
Molly still didn't answer.
"And then the world resolved itself into pain and semidarkness: He was half buried in the wreckage of a corridor that had been subjected to a terrible attack. Cold air told him that the side of the castle had been blown away, and hot stickiness on his cheek told him that he was bleeding copiously. Then he heard a terrible cry that pulled at his insides, that expressed agony of a kind neither flame nor curse could cause, and he stood up, swaying, more frightened than he had been that day, more frightened, perhaps, than he had been in his life...And Hermione was struggling to her feet in the wreckage, and three red headed men were grouped on the ground where the wall had blasted apart. Harry grabbed Hermione's hand as they staggered and stumbled over stone and wood."
The playful tone in the person's voice had disappeared; now, he was reading softly and somberly.
"'No - no - no!" someone was shouting. 'No - Fred - no!"
His voice broke.
"And Percy was shaking his brother, and Ron was kneeling beside them, and Fred's eyes stared without seeing, the ghost of his last laugh still etched upon his face," Fred Weasley finished.
Molly looked up at Fred, the tears finally banished from her line of sight. Fred was looking at the book like it was a monster he wanted to destroy.
"Where did you get this?" he asked, his voice trembling. "What kind of sorcery is this?"
Molly bit her lip and took a deep breath.
"We're not from here," Molly explained. "Me and a few others - we're not from this place or this time. I live in a little town in America - a time when this story is commonplace."
Fred was looking at her funny. Why was he looking at her funny?
"So what you're saying is, you're from the future," he said. "In America. And everyone knows our story."
Molly nodded.
"Are there other books?" he asked.
"Yeah," Molly said. "I have them upstairs - there's one for each year that Harry's at Hogwarts."
"Really," Fred said. "Is there anything else that these have predicted?"
"Everything," Molly said. "Quirrell being evil, the basilisk, the dementors outside the school - it's all in there."
"So there's no chance that...this won't happen," Fred said, trying to keep his voice from turning up into a question.
"Probably not," Molly admitted.
"So I'm going to die," Fred said.
Molly nodded.
The two looked at each other silently. It was the most somber Molly had ever seen Fred.
Finally, Fred took a deep breath, as if trying to calm himself.
"I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory," he said. Molly looked at him for a second, trying to figure out where he was going.
"When's it gonna get me? In my sleep, seven feet ahead of me?"
Suddenly, Molly recognized the words.
"If I see it coming, do I run or do I let it be? Is it like a beat without a melody?" she continued.
"See, I never thought I'd live past twenty - where I come from, some get half as many…"
"Ask anybody why we're living fast and we laugh, reach for a flask - we have to make this moment last, that's plenty…"
Suddenly, the door to the girls' dormitory opened, and Mackenzie stepped out.
"What are you two doing?" Mackenzie said.
"Trying to stay awake for Astronomy," Molly said.
Mackenzie smiled.
"Scratch that, this is not a moment, it's the movement," she said. "Where all the hungriest brothers with something to prove went."
"When foes oppose us, we take an honest stand," Molly continued. "We rode like Moses, claiming our Promised Land."
"And?" Fred said. "If we win our independence, is that a guarantee of freedom for our descendants, or will the blood we shed begin an endless cycle of vengeance and death with no defendants?"
Molly started to pat the rhythm out on her legs.
"I know the action in the street is excitin', but Jesus, between all the bleedin' and fightin', I've been readin' and writin'..."
"We need to handle our financial situation…"
"Are we a nation of states? What's the state of our nation?"
Finally, the whole group of children sang together.
"I'm past patiently waitin'! I'm passionately slammin' every expectation, every action's an act of creation! I'm laughin' in the face of casualties and sorrow - for the first time, I'm thinkin' past tomorrow!"
It was as if Molly had never even read about Fred's death as the kids sang.
"I am not throwin' away my shot! I am not throwin' away my shot! You know, I'm just like my country, I'm young, scrappy, and hungry, and I'm not throwin' away my shot!"
"We gotta rise up," Molly sang. "We gotta rise up...we gotta rise up, rise up!"
"Time to take a shot!"
"Rise up, rise up!"
"Time to take a shot!"
Molly sang the ohs that came before the final line as Fred and Mackenzie began to wrap up the song. And the children sang the last line together:
"And I am not throwin' away my, NOT THROWIN' AWAY MY SHOT!"
Molly struck a pose and dared to laugh. Her eyes darted to Fred, who smiled slyly.
"Now, guys," Mackenzie said playfully. "What were you doing down here?"
"Nothing much," Molly said as she broke the pose. "Reading, singing, coming to terms with our own mortality, et cetera."
"Let me guess," Mackenzie said. "Deathly Hallows?"
"Yep," Molly said.
"Chapter 31?"
"Yep."
"The ghost of his last laugh?"
"Don't remind me," Fred said, and the group of children fell silent.
"Did you tell him?" Mackenzie asked Molly.
"How else would I explain it?" Molly replied.
"True," Mackenzie said. "Hey, Fred?"
"Yes?" Fred said.
"Can you not tell anyone else about what happened here tonight?"
"Why?" Fred asked.
"Because Molly and I aren't the only ones that are from the other time," Mackenzie said. "And if anyone else finds out we're not from here, they're going to try and pry things out of us, things we can't tell them. Just - don't tell anyone, alright?"
"Even George?" Fred asked.
"Especially George," Mackenzie said.
Fred nodded.
"Well, I should be getting back to bed," he said. "See you two tomorrow!"
"See you tomorrow!" Molly said as Fred walked through the door to his room.
Mackenzie put her arm around Molly's shoulder. "He'll be all right," she said.
Molly looked at Mackenzie, then back at the door. "I sure hope so."
The next day, Molly was at lunch, sitting with Mackenzie and Fred, when she burst out laughing.
"What is it?" Mackenzie said, looking at the History of Magic textbook in Molly's hands.
"I didn't think there was that much that was funny in the story of Grindelwald's speech," Fred said.
Molly shook her head and started to whisper. "I bewitched the book - the one from last night - so that it just looks like a textbook."
"Where are you in the book?" Mackenzie whispered back.
"I'm almost done," Molly said. "But Fred - look at what your mother just said."
She showed the book to Fred. He looked at it for a second, and then he started laughing himself.
"My God," he said through his laughter. "I love that woman so much."
Suddenly, Hermione walked over. "What is it?" she asked.
Molly snapped the book shut, trying not to act suspicious. "Nothing," she said. "We were just reading about Harry defeating Voldemort."
"And why is his parents' death funny?" Hermione asked.
"Just - now that we know how he defeated Voldy in the first place," Fred said. "It makes it a little funny."
"Like, you just got a love bomb in your face!" Mackenzie said.
Hermione waited a second, then nodded. "Okay, that is pretty funny," she said with a smile on her face. "See you later!"
"You too!" Mackenzie said. She looked over to Molly. "Thank you," she mouthed.
Molly tilted her head playfully. "What can I say except you're welcome?" she sang quietly.
Mackenzie smiled as Molly opened the book and finished off the last few pages.
"Welcome back, Molly," Lupin said as she and Harry walked into the History of Magic room that night.
"Hi, Professor," Molly said. "Do you want to go first, Harry?"
Harry shrugged. "Sure," he said.
He took his wand out and moved his feet into an almost-athletic stance. Lupin flicked the trunk open, and the dementor-boggart burst forth from it.
"Expecto Patronum!" Harry cried. "Expecto Patronum! Expecto Patronum! Expecto Pa-"
Suddenly, a light came out of Harry's wand - a beautiful, bluish-white light, slowly pushing back on the dementor. Harry's legs wavered, but he held strong. After a few seconds, and Harry's face turning pale and sweaty, Lupin broke in and cried, "Riddikulus!"
The dementor turned into that crystal orb - which Molly knew now was the full moon - and Lupin used his wand to move it back into the trunk.
"Nice one, Harry!" Molly said, giving him a high-five. His palms were clammy.
"Thanks," said Harry, almost out of breath. "Your turn."
"Alright," Molly said, walking up to the trunk and drawing her wand. "Maybe I should try a different memory this time."
She thought of when she was crying in the bathroom, just after receiving detention from McGonagall, and she discovered that silver feather that she couldn't pick up - and had looked up to see Opa, sitting on the ledge as though she had never died. How she had opened the door and invented a spell just to get to hug her friend again.
"Fire away," she said.
Lupin flicked open the trunk's lock, and the dementor-boggart burst forward.
"Expecto Patronum!" she cried, thinking of how happy she was when she finally saw Madison again, roaming the halls, telling people how late they were in finally finding her. "Expecto Patronum! Expecto Patronum! Expecto Patro-"
And there was the fog, the mist that always showed up around this time. I can handle this, she thought. It's just going to be Kirsten and Amber - I've gotten over this.
It was taking a long time for the voices to show up, but Molly could've sworn she heard a rippling of paper.
I can handle this, I can handle this, I can handle this -
"FRED!"
Molly's eyes widened. It wasn't Kirsten and Amber - at least, not anymore.
"No, no, please," the voice said - Molly's, from last night. "Please, no…"
Then it was a boy's voice - Fred's.
"Molly? Are you alright?"
Molly's breath grew heavy. She wasn't sure what was going on, or how to escape it.
Suddenly, the ground seemed to fall out underneath her, fragments of words spinning around her in the midst.
"Where did you get this?" Fred's voice said. "What kind of sorcery is this?"
And then the mist and the words faded, turning the whole world black.
"RUN!" Harry roared.
She was standing in a group with Harry, Ron, and Hermione, who looked much older than she remembered. Their faces were stained with grime and blood, and little tear tracks separated the dirt.
The Battle of Hogwarts, Molly thought.
Harry grabbed Hermione's hand and ran, Ron following them. As quickly as she could, Molly bounded after them.
Ahead of her, she could hear Harry calling for someone - Hagrid. It was as if he had just been captured as they ran closer and closer towards the forest - oh, no.
He had just been captured. Which meant that something else, something horrifying was about to come.
And sure enough, just a few steps from the forest, the world grew cold, dark, and quiet, with a silence only the presence of dementors could bring.
"No," Molly whispered quietly, the other three not noticing.
A deep breath in from the dementors, and the world had already begun to turn misty. She heard herself screaming about what she'd read about Fred, back in third year, when nobody died and life was good.
A cold sweat broke out over Molly.
"Patronuses, Harry!" Hermione cried weakly. "Come on!"
But Molly knew it wasn't possible - at least, not before Luna and Ernie and Seamus showed up. Right now, they were all on their own.
Molly fumbled for her wand, trying to muster a happy enough thought to get her Patronus to come.
"Ex-expecto…" she whispered, her voice trailing off.
And then something else happened - she heard something she had never heard before.
A boy. Screaming at the top of his lungs, the kind of scream neither flame nor curse could cause.
And then her own voice.
"No - no - no!" Molly heard herself say. "No - Fred - no!"
And then the world fell out from underneath her, and her last conscious thought was:
I'm going to see it. I'm going to see him die.
And the mist faded into blackness.
Yes. That just happened.
Shoot.
On that happy note (yes I made the same joke twice), on to the behind-the-magic fun facts!
1) So this is part two of why I wrote the story in the first place! I was obsessed with the idea of knowing your future and grappling with the decision of whether to prevent it or not, and I thought this would be a cool way to demonstrate it. It's one of the biggest adventures within the time-traveling plot, and I'm so excited to continue it!
2) As much as I enjoyed Crimes of Grindelwald, I loved the little dig that Fred gets in. And of COURSE he has to get to react to Molly's epic B-bomb in Deathly Hallows!
3) When I shared this with Stella's inspiration (over two years ago - my GOD I've been working on this story for forever) - this was her reaction to Fred singing "My Shot":
OMIGOD STOP
I AM NOW SOBBING GROSSLY OVER THIS LINE. HOW DARE YOU MOLLY. DO YOU JKNOW WHAT THIS MEANS?
Weehawken. Dawn. Guns. Drawn.
So I think she liked it.
4) Having written a lot more of the fanfic since I wrote this part, I still think Fred reading his death chapter is one of my favorite things in this fanfiction It takes J.K. Rowling's wonderful prose and gives it a whole new context. That's one of my favorite parts of this story - it's let me rediscover this series in a whole new light. Thanks again for sticking with me all this time!
Feel free to review, but please no negative reviews or cursing. (And please, NOTHING POLITICAL!) Thanks!