Molly was extremely surprised and quite worried when she saw Arthur returning home less than an hour after he had left for work. "What happened? Are you feeling well? They didn't sack you, did they?" she asked, all at once.
Arthur sighed and headed to the kitchen, signing for her to sit down. He decided to go directly to the heart of the matter. "Why did you send a howler to the Potters?"
"They didn't pay proper respect to the headmaster," she said indignantly.
"And why was that your concern? They are not your children and neither friends of the family, as they made it very clear at Christmas. What right did you have to even think of contacting them?"
"But, Dumbledore…" She didn't really have any good reason, and she knew that. It was only her temper that got the better of her.
"Dumbledore is, or was, mature enough to decide for himself. If he did things that offended Potter, it's none of your business. Is it?"
Molly didn't remember many times when her husband was admonishing her so seriously. She didn't feel like she did anything worthy of such a reaction, but if he was so serious, he must have had a cause. She still couldn't understand why a letter to a child or two could cause such a reaction. She just nodded.
"Do you think your howlers have any effect to the better on their recipients? Have the twins, or Bill, or Charlie, ever changed something due to your howlers? Never! You only embarrass them by acting like a harridan. Is that what you want to achieve? Making your children embarrassed to have you as their mother?"
"No! Of course not!" she said hurriedly.
"Then – no more howlers to anybody! They never do anything good. They only embarrass the recipients and anybody around, making them think the worst of the sender. I'll make sure to vanish any piece of howler parchment from the Burrow as soon as we finish this conversation, and you'd better never buy more of it. Is that clear?!"
Molly felt quite enticed by Arthur's behaviour. She almost forgot that he could be like that. She had to force her mind back on track, though. Bedtime activity should wait a bit longer.
"Alright, dear. No more howlers, as you say." It wasn't the normal way they interacted, but she knew her normal behaviour was not useful at the moment.
Arthur didn't calm down yet. "Are you aware of the relative position of Lord Potter compared to us?"
Molly had to think, but she could remember very little. She knew Lord Potter was higher on the social ladder, but not much else. She shook her head.
"For starters, he holds four seats in the Wizengamot, as far as I know. Maybe more – I'm not sure. That makes insulting him a very stupid action, and insulting his wife is even worse."
Molly couldn't quite accept that. "But she bonded with him at eleven. That must mean they had sex. Only a slut would do that!"
"Or ones pushed by magic to finish their bond. I suppose that's how it happened. Then, you know that Ron is barely aware that girls are different from boys, and Lord Potter is about half a year younger. That means they were pushed by magic, the way I see it."
He sighed and added, "Besides, their bond may have formed even without sex. Didn't you read Gringotts' announcement? Seconds after signing the betrothal, their bond married them. No sex involved."
Molly sighed. "That's possible, I think."
"Then, you may have forgotten, but the land here is not really ours. One of the Potter ancestors accepted one of my ancestors as a vassal and gave him this land to live on. We rent it for one Galleon per year. If he gets annoyed with us, it's within his rights to raise the rent to a more realistic sum. Will you still be able to live here if he does that?"
Molly paled. Even a modest rent of five Galleons per month, which was way below what it should cost them, was more than they could afford, especially with four children at Hogwarts and another joining the next year. She was so accustomed to think of the Burrow as her house, that she completely forgot about that tidbit, although Arthur had told her even before the wedding.
"What can we do, then?" she asked worriedly, her confidence completely gone.
Arthur sighed. "We shall have to apologize publicly. I need to think of the best way to do it. Besides, I suppose Lord Potter sent us a letter or will send it soon. We shall see what he requests from us and act accordingly. We have no other choice, really."
Molly put her hand on his arm. "I'm sorry, dear. I should have been more prudent. I'll try my best to do better than that. Now, it looks like a cup of tea would do us good."
Arthur nodded. Molly got up and busied herself for a while, returning with two cups of tea. She put one in front of Arthur and started sipping the other, looking quite pensive.
They were interrupted by an owl. Molly took the letter and gave the owl some treats before opening the letter. "It's from the twins. They marked it URGENT!"
She read it quickly and gasped. "Oh, my! He really acts like a lord."
Arthur raised his hand and she gave him the letter. He then just shook his head. "You really messed things with him, Molly. We're lucky the twins are in better relations with him than Ron. Their apology was just on time. It's still my responsibility, as the Head of House, to give the formal apology, after you apologize, of course."
"Would you like me to write to him?" Molly seemed very eager.
Arthur shook his head. "No. We need to go to Hogwarts and do it personally in the Great Hall, where your Howler was heard by all. Our apologies should also be just as public, especially to Lady Potter."
Despite receiving quite a tough admonishment, Molly felt extremely aroused. Where had this facet of Arthur been hidden for so long? She needed him badly. Well, he also looked like he needed some rest, or some distraction, at least.
"Why don't we take some rest, dear? Ginny went to visit with Luna and you look like some nap would help you better deal with the situation."
Arthur smiled weakly. He already knew what she had in mind and he couldn't fault her intentions. He would still need to be uncompromising about the apology, but he could use a bit of distraction. "Sure, dear. Want to join me?"
–..–
Molly made sure to return to the kitchen before Ginny was expected. Arthur fell asleep, as always, but she couldn't sleep. It wasn't only what they had done in bed. It was more the thought about how she put her family in danger by acting stupidly. Well, she knew she had a temper, but as a mother of seven, it was time to put it under control, not to let it control her. Now she'd have to stand in front of the whole school and apologize like a child who was caught stealing the cookies. It was still better than having to lose her house. Hopefully, Lord Potter would show restraint and mercy to her, although she knew she didn't really deserve it.
She sighed and started preparing the next meal.
Half an hour later, Arthur joined her. "Care to show me what caused you to send that unfortunate letter?" he asked.
Molly still had that newspaper. She brought it to Arthur, who hadn't read more than the headlines until then. She then pointed at the short article about the press conference, saying nothing.
Arthur read it attentively. He then leafed through the paper, reading anything that mentioned Potter or Dumbledore. He then sighed.
"Have you read the other articles before sending your letter?" he asked, already expecting the answer.
"No. Was there anything of importance?"
Arthur only pointed out several articles. "Read them first. We can talk after you do."
The Floo flared a bit later. Arthur signed to Molly to answer. She put the paper down and went to the Floo.
She returned within a minute. "Ginny asked if she could stay there until dinner. I allowed it, provided she gets a good enough lunch there. It will leave us time to consider our options."
'Not that we have many,' Arthur thought but said nothing.
He let Molly read the rest. Just watching her face, he could see how her adoration for Dumbledore was diminishing until it vanished completely.
"What was that old man thinking that he allowed himself to meddle with the lives of others?" she said, once she finished reading.
"He was way past his prime even before the rise of You-Know-Who. He just revealed it all during that conference."
"But why? I mean, he was keeping it all secret for years, all for his 'Greater Good'. Why did he suddenly talk?"
Arthur smiled sadly. "It was at Gringotts, wasn't it? I suppose some goblin cast a truth charm on him."
She frowned. "I didn't know there was such a charm. Why don't we use the charm instead of Veritaserum?"
"Well, that's also one of his doings. Almost the first thing he did when he became Chief Warlock was to replace the truth charm during trial and interrogations with the Veritaserum. He claimed the charm could be easily fooled, although there is no record of that ever happening. I now suspect it was for his own machinations. Even then, he was already almost too old to be given that potion. Then, not allowing it to be used without the Wizengamot agreement made it almost unusable. You know how rarely one can get an agreement there."
"I thought you supported Dumbledore," she said in surprise.
"No. I supported the fight against the dark, and he was its leader at the time. Not a very good leader, in retrospect."
"Why do you say that?"
He sighed. "His secrecy cost us lives. I'm sure quite a few ambushes could have been avoided if he only didn't keep the information to himself. Your brothers died in a Death Eater ambush, didn't they? Had he told them about it, they could have ambushed the ambushers and gotten better chances to survive. And the Potters? The Longbottoms? Many others? Why didn't he give the information when needed? What use was his spy if the information could not be used to help us?"
Molly had to agree. "And now it looks like he isn't a very good headmaster, either. I never thought that way about Binns, you know, but the other teachers were good, I think."
"What about security? A troll roaming the corridors? A possessed teacher? A Death Eater teaching? The wards should have prevented it all. He probably meddled with them too."
Molly felt like it was too much to think of at once. She made lunch and served it, sitting as close to Arthur as she could, giving and receiving some encouragement from the physical proximity. She wasn't even sure that Arthur noticed. He seemed to be deep in thought, only eating mechanically, not paying any attention to the food.
"I'll need to take another day off to go to Hogwarts and back," he thought loudly. "I wonder if tomorrow or the day after would be better. And we need to think of how to phrase our apologies."
She sat at his side way after they finished lunch, only leaving him to clear the table and bring some more tea. After a while, Arthur asked her to bring all the howler parchments and envelopes. She didn't dare disobey or even argue. She could feel the seriousness in his demeanour. She then watched as he put them all in the fireplace, waited for them all to burn into ashes and then vanished the ashes. No magic could bring them back.
"I suggest you now try to write down what you intend to say for the apology. I'll check it over when you finish, and I have to think of my own apology," he told her.
They sat silently at the kitchen table, each with a quill and some parchments. Two hours later, she made some tea for them both. An hour later, she stretched and said, "I hope this is it," passing a parchment to Arthur. He only lifted his eyes momentarily and smiled approvingly, before returning to his own parchment.
Molly busied herself with dinner. It was almost ready when a white owl came in with a letter. She gave it some water and some bacon, that the owl seemed to like. She then looked at the letter and passed it to Arthur. "It's from Lord Potter," she said.
Arthur opened it and read quickly, nodding to himself.
"I need to call the ministry and let them know I take tomorrow off. We're going to Hogwarts. Can Ginny go to some friend or do we need to take her along?"
"I'm not sure. She only has the Lovegood girl as a friend, you know, and since the accident, neither the girl nor her father seem to connect with reality very often. She's there today. I'm not sure we could send her tomorrow too. I could send her to Aunt Muriel, but she sees it as a punishment. They don't deserve that."
Arthur chuckled internally. Aunt Muriel was a stern old lady who looked like she had never laughed in her life, although he'd heard some stories to the contrary, while Ginny was full of life and mischief, just like her twin brothers. Putting these two together was a punishment for both. It was too much.
"She could enjoy visiting Hogwarts, but I'm not sure it's wise to let her witness the apology," he said.
"She may like to visit the Lovegood girl tomorrow too," Molly said encouragingly.
–..–
They retired early for the night, planning on arriving at Hogwarts early enough for breakfast, when all the students were present. Unfortunately, Ginny had to come along, since Luna was going with her father elsewhere. Arthur still had to tell her the main points. "We're going to Hogwarts to apologize to Lord Potter for the howler your mother sent to him and his wife without first thinking. It was a very bad act and we now need to apologize and hope he accepts our apologies and refrain from acting in any way that would harm our position."
"Is Lord Potter anything like Harry Potter?" Ginny asked.
"His name is Harry Potter, but he is nothing like the hero in your books. He's also married already, although he's about Ron's age."
All Ginny could say was, "Oh…"
Molly was extremely surprised and quite worried when she saw Arthur returning home less than an hour after he had left for work. "What happened? Are you feeling well? They didn't sack you, did they?" she asked, all at once.
Arthur sighed and headed to the kitchen, signing for her to sit down. He decided to go directly to the heart of the matter. "Why did you send a howler to the Potters?"
"They didn't pay proper respect to the headmaster," she said indignantly.
"And why was that your concern? They are not your children and neither friends of the family, as they made it very clear at Christmas. What right did you have to even think of contacting them?"
"But, Dumbledore…" She didn't really have any good reason, and she knew that. It was only her temper that got the better of her.
"Dumbledore is, or was, mature enough to decide for himself. If he did things that offended Potter, it's none of your business. Is it?"
Molly didn't remember many times when her husband was admonishing her so seriously. She didn't feel like she did anything worthy of such a reaction, but if he was so serious, he must have had a cause. She still couldn't understand why a letter to a child or two could cause such a reaction. She just nodded.
"Do you think your howlers have any effect to the better on their recipients? Have the twins, or Bill, or Charlie, ever changed something due to your howlers? Never! You only embarrass them by acting like a harridan. Is that what you want to achieve? Making your children embarrassed to have you as their mother?"
"No! Of course not!" she said hurriedly.
"Then – no more howlers to anybody! They never do anything good. They only embarrass the recipients and anybody around, making them think the worst of the sender. I'll make sure to vanish any piece of howler parchment from the Burrow as soon as we finish this conversation, and you'd better never buy more of it. Is that clear?!"
Molly felt quite enticed by Arthur's behaviour. She almost forgot that he could be like that. She had to force her mind back on track, though. Bedtime activity should wait a bit longer.
"Alright, dear. No more howlers, as you say." It wasn't the normal way they interacted, but she knew her normal behaviour was not useful at the moment.
Arthur didn't calm down yet. "Are you aware of the relative position of Lord Potter compared to us?"
Molly had to think, but she could remember very little. She knew Lord Potter was higher on the social ladder, but not much else. She shook her head.
"For starters, he holds four seats in the Wizengamot, as far as I know. Maybe more – I'm not sure. That makes insulting him a very stupid action, and insulting his wife is even worse."
Molly couldn't quite accept that. "But she bonded with him at eleven. That must mean they had sex. Only a slut would do that!"
"Or ones pushed by magic to finish their bond. I suppose that's how it happened. Then, you know that Ron is barely aware that girls are different from boys, and Lord Potter is about half a year younger. That means they were pushed by magic, the way I see it."
He sighed and added, "Besides, their bond may have formed even without sex. Didn't you read Gringotts' announcement? Seconds after signing the betrothal, their bond married them. No sex involved."
Molly sighed. "That's possible, I think."
"Then, you may have forgotten, but the land here is not really ours. One of the Potter ancestors accepted one of my ancestors as a vassal and gave him this land to live on. We rent it for one Galleon per year. If he gets annoyed with us, it's within his rights to raise the rent to a more realistic sum. Will you still be able to live here if he does that?"
Molly paled. Even a modest rent of five Galleons per month, which was way below what it should cost them, was more than they could afford, especially with four children at Hogwarts and another joining the next year. She was so accustomed to think of the Burrow as her house, that she completely forgot about that tidbit, although Arthur had told her even before the wedding.
"What can we do, then?" she asked worriedly, her confidence completely gone.
Arthur sighed. "We shall have to apologize publicly. I need to think of the best way to do it. Besides, I suppose Lord Potter sent us a letter or will send it soon. We shall see what he requests from us and act accordingly. We have no other choice, really."
Molly put her hand on his arm. "I'm sorry, dear. I should have been more prudent. I'll try my best to do better than that. Now, it looks like a cup of tea would do us good."
Arthur nodded. Molly got up and busied herself for a while, returning with two cups of tea. She put one in front of Arthur and started sipping the other, looking quite pensive.
They were interrupted by an owl. Molly took the letter and gave the owl some treats before opening the letter. "It's from the twins. They marked it URGENT!"
She read it quickly and gasped. "Oh, my! He really acts like a lord."
Arthur raised his hand and she gave him the letter. He then just shook his head. "You really messed things with him, Molly. We're lucky the twins are in better relations with him than Ron. Their apology was just on time. It's still my responsibility, as the Head of House, to give the formal apology, after you apologize, of course."
"Would you like me to write to him?" Molly seemed very eager.
Arthur shook his head. "No. We need to go to Hogwarts and do it personally in the Great Hall, where your Howler was heard by all. Our apologies should also be just as public, especially to Lady Potter."
Despite receiving quite a tough admonishment, Molly felt extremely aroused. Where had this facet of Arthur been hidden for so long? She needed him badly. Well, he also looked like he needed some rest, or some distraction, at least.
"Why don't we take some rest, dear? Ginny went to visit with Luna and you look like some nap would help you better deal with the situation."
Arthur smiled weakly. He already knew what she had in mind and he couldn't fault her intentions. He would still need to be uncompromising about the apology, but he could use a bit of distraction. "Sure, dear. Want to join me?"
–..–
Molly made sure to return to the kitchen before Ginny was expected. Arthur fell asleep, as always, but she couldn't sleep. It wasn't only what they had done in bed. It was more the thought about how she put her family in danger by acting stupidly. Well, she knew she had a temper, but as a mother of seven, it was time to put it under control, not to let it control her. Now she'd have to stand in front of the whole school and apologize like a child who was caught stealing the cookies. It was still better than having to lose her house. Hopefully, Lord Potter would show restraint and mercy to her, although she knew she didn't really deserve it.
She sighed and started preparing the next meal.
Half an hour later, Arthur joined her. "Care to show me what caused you to send that unfortunate letter?" he asked.
Molly still had that newspaper. She brought it to Arthur, who hadn't read more than the headlines until then. She then pointed at the short article about the press conference, saying nothing.
Arthur read it attentively. He then leafed through the paper, reading anything that mentioned Potter or Dumbledore. He then sighed.
"Have you read the other articles before sending your letter?" he asked, already expecting the answer.
"No. Was there anything of importance?"
Arthur only pointed out several articles. "Read them first. We can talk after you do."
The Floo flared a bit later. Arthur signed to Molly to answer. She put the paper down and went to the Floo.
She returned within a minute. "Ginny asked if she could stay there until dinner. I allowed it, provided she gets a good enough lunch there. It will leave us time to consider our options."
'Not that we have many,' Arthur thought but said nothing.
He let Molly read the rest. Just watching her face, he could see how her adoration for Dumbledore was diminishing until it vanished completely.
"What was that old man thinking that he allowed himself to meddle with the lives of others?" she said, once she finished reading.
"He was way past his prime even before the rise of You-Know-Who. He just revealed it all during that conference."
"But why? I mean, he was keeping it all secret for years, all for his 'Greater Good'. Why did he suddenly talk?"
Arthur smiled sadly. "It was at Gringotts, wasn't it? I suppose some goblin cast a truth charm on him."
She frowned. "I didn't know there was such a charm. Why don't we use the charm instead of Veritaserum?"
"Well, that's also one of his doings. Almost the first thing he did when he became Chief Warlock was to replace the truth charm during trial and interrogations with the Veritaserum. He claimed the charm could be easily fooled, although there is no record of that ever happening. I now suspect it was for his own machinations. Even then, he was already almost too old to be given that potion. Then, not allowing it to be used without the Wizengamot agreement made it almost unusable. You know how rarely one can get an agreement there."
"I thought you supported Dumbledore," she said in surprise.
"No. I supported the fight against the dark, and he was its leader at the time. Not a very good leader, in retrospect."
"Why do you say that?"
He sighed. "His secrecy cost us lives. I'm sure quite a few ambushes could have been avoided if he only didn't keep the information to himself. Your brothers died in a Death Eater ambush, didn't they? Had he told them about it, they could have ambushed the ambushers and gotten better chances to survive. And the Potters? The Longbottoms? Many others? Why didn't he give the information when needed? What use was his spy if the information could not be used to help us?"
Molly had to agree. "And now it looks like he isn't a very good headmaster, either. I never thought that way about Binns, you know, but the other teachers were good, I think."
"What about security? A troll roaming the corridors? A possessed teacher? A Death Eater teaching? The wards should have prevented it all. He probably meddled with them too."
Molly felt like it was too much to think of at once. She made lunch and served it, sitting as close to Arthur as she could, giving and receiving some encouragement from the physical proximity. She wasn't even sure that Arthur noticed. He seemed to be deep in thought, only eating mechanically, not paying any attention to the food.
"I'll need to take another day off to go to Hogwarts and back," he thought loudly. "I wonder if tomorrow or the day after would be better. And we need to think of how to phrase our apologies."
She sat at his side way after they finished lunch, only leaving him to clear the table and bring some more tea. After a while, Arthur asked her to bring all the howler parchments and envelopes. She didn't dare disobey or even argue. She could feel the seriousness in his demeanour. She then watched as he put them all in the fireplace, waited for them all to burn into ashes and then vanished the ashes. No magic could bring them back.
"I suggest you now try to write down what you intend to say for the apology. I'll check it over when you finish, and I have to think of my own apology," he told her.
They sat silently at the kitchen table, each with a quill and some parchments. Two hours later, she made some tea for them both. An hour later, she stretched and said, "I hope this is it," passing a parchment to Arthur. He only lifted his eyes momentarily and smiled approvingly, before returning to his own parchment.
Molly busied herself with dinner. It was almost ready when a white owl came in with a letter. She gave it some water and some bacon, that the owl seemed to like. She then looked at the letter and passed it to Arthur. "It's from Lord Potter," she said.
Arthur opened it and read quickly, nodding to himself.
"I need to call the ministry and let them know I take tomorrow off. We're going to Hogwarts. Can Ginny go to some friend or do we need to take her along?"
"I'm not sure. She only has the Lovegood girl as a friend, you know, and since the accident, neither the girl nor her father seem to connect with reality very often. She's there today. I'm not sure we could send her tomorrow too. I could send her to Aunt Muriel, but she sees it as a punishment. They don't deserve that."
Arthur chuckled internally. Aunt Muriel was a stern old lady who looked like she had never laughed in her life, although he'd heard some stories to the contrary, while Ginny was full of life and mischief, just like her twin brothers. Putting these two together was a punishment for both. It was too much.
"She could enjoy visiting Hogwarts, but I'm not sure it's wise to let her witness the apology," he said.
"She may like to visit the Lovegood girl tomorrow too," Molly said encouragingly.
–..–
They retired early for the night, planning on arriving at Hogwarts early enough for breakfast, when all the students were present. Unfortunately, Ginny had to come along, since Luna was going with her father elsewhere. Arthur still had to tell her the main points. "We're going to Hogwarts to apologize to Lord Potter for the howler your mother sent to him and his wife without first thinking. It was a very bad act and we now need to apologize and hope he accepts our apologies and refrain from acting in any way that would harm our position."
"Is Lord Potter anything like Harry Potter?" Ginny asked.
"His name is Harry Potter, but he is nothing like the hero in your books. He's also married already, although he's about Ron's age."
All Ginny could say was, "Oh…"