One Last Try [HP Jamione fanfic]

60. Exile

A/N: Buckle up, this is a long chapter and the beginning of the end O.o omg omg omg it's happening!

6th August 1980

Molly Prewett had always been a practical girl, and growing up and becoming Molly Weasley had not changed that about her. Neither had giving birth to six children. If anything it made her that much more practical.

Practicality was not a trait much seen in her family, not in the way Molly embodied it. As such she had always felt a little more isolated from them than most would expect for a family as close as hers was.

She had always been more like her father, and closer with him than her mother, but still the twins were more like Geraint than she was, and when Hermione had come along she was so much like Iphemia that Molly had felt more isolated than before. Arthur had had to calm her down when her parents had first introduced her to Hermione – and then refused to tell her any further information about who she was or where she came from.

It had taken Molly a long time to warm up to her new young sister, to get used to her presence in their family. But once she had – seeing Hermione's love for William had helped a lot – she had finally understood the closeness siblings in other families had.

She had been alone with her parents for such a long time before the twins were born that their birth had felt like an imposition. Eight years as an only child, and then two screaming twins arrived to take up all of her parent's time. Molly had not been close with her younger brothers before going to Hogwarts, and school had made the distance larger. Finally getting a chance to experience that closeness, even if it was with a sister ten years younger than her, had changed a lot of Molly's views of the world.

Now they were in the midst of a war, the rest of her family out at 'secret' meetings to try to defeat You-Know-Who, and Molly spent every minute of the day, when she wasn't worrying about her sons, worrying about her brothers and sister. She only thanked Merlin that Arthur had refused to join and fight, and instead had stuck with his safe job at the Ministry.

This war had gotten her mother killed, and her brothers had nearly suffered the same fate. That was unacceptable in Molly's opinion. She wanted it over as much as anyone else, but she couldn't accept that the rest of her family was at such risk until everything was done with. She knew she had a tendency to be over-protective, but it was needed when the rest of her family seemed to embrace the Gryffindor recklessness with aplomb. Even Hermione, who was more like their Slytherin mother – and really should have been in the House herself – than any of the other Prewetts.

Molly wasn't sure why she seemed to have the only ounce of sense when it came to war, but she was going to use it.

She'd spent the whole day yesterday trying to convince the twins that a career in a much safer job would be preferable to being an Auror, and that there were others who could fight the war for them. Fabian had scoffed and they'd ended their lunch in a screaming match over the value of fighting for the light. Gideon had, as always, been more subdued and relaxed about the whole argument, but he had still flat out refused to listen to reason.

She hadn't tried talking to her father yet, knowing the man was still working through Iphemia's terrible death, and had pulled back from fighting in the war anyway. Hermione was her last stop, and she truly hoped she would see reason the way the twins hadn't. A war was no place for untrained people, let alone untrained women. Hermione should be focusing on garnering a proposal from James - Molly considered it rather scandalous that Hermione was already living with her boyfriend when they'd started the betrothal process but were neither engaged nor married. Her younger sister should not be fighting a war better left to older, experienced and trained men.