At the sound of her screams, Remus ran out of the kitchen first. Sirius briskly placed the picture on the table and ran out after him, followed closely by Crookshanks and the others.
"What's going on?" Remus asked urgently as he reached Molly and Harry upstairs, looking around. He had come running into the room, closely followed by Sirius, with Moody stumping along behind them.
Crookshanks had rushed along with them too, going unnoticed by everyone. Although the moment Jenna saw that Molly's boggart had taken the shape of Harry, laying dead on the floor, her whole body froze. For a second, she forgot that it wasn't real.
Remus looked from Molly to the dead Harry on the floor and seemed to understand in an instant. Pulling out his own wand he said, very firmly and clearly, "Riddikulus!"
Harry's body vanished. A silvery orb hung in the air over the spot where it had lain. Remus waved his wand once more and the orb vanished in a puff of smoke. Molly's boggart had taken the shape of all the people she cared for in turn.
"Oh — oh — oh!" gulped Molly, and she broke into a storm of crying, her face in her hands.
"Molly," said Remus bleakly, walking over to her, "Molly, don't..." Next second she was sobbing her heart out on Lupin's shoulder. "Molly, it was just a boggart," he said soothingly, patting her on the head. "Just a stupid boggart..."
"I see them d-d-dead all the time!" Molly sobbed against his shoulder. "All the t-t-time! I d-d-dream about it..."
Sirius was staring at the patch of carpet where the boggart, pretending to be Harry's body, had lain. Moody was looking at Harry, who avoided his gaze. He had a funny feeling Moody's magical eye had followed him all the way out of the kitchen.
Jenna knew how Molly felt. The truth was, her nightmares had never left her. She just had gotten used to the terror that came to her with the night. She always used to dream of her friends and families in the first war, seeing them dead all the time. She would shot awake in the middle of the night, covered in sweats.
"D-d-don't tell Arthur," Molly was gulping now, mopping her eyes frantically with her cuffs. "I d-d-don't want him to know... Being silly..."
Remus handed her a handkerchief and she blew her nose.
"Harry, I'm so sorry, what must you think of me?" she said shakily. "Not even able to get rid of a boggart..."
"Don't be silly," said Harry, trying to
smile.
"I'm just s-s-so worried," she said, tears spilling out of her eyes again. "Half the f-f-family's in the Order, it'll b-b-be a miracle if we all come through this... and P-P-Percy's not talking to us... What if something d-d-dreadful happens and we had never m-m-made up? And what's going to happen if Arthur and I get killed, who's g-g-going to look after Ron and Ginny?"
"Molly, that's enough," said Remus firmly. "This isn't like last time. The Order is better prepared, we've got a head start, we know what Voldemort's up to —"
Molly gave a little squeak of fright at the sound of the name.
"Oh, Molly, come on, it's about time you got used to hearing it — look, I can't promise no one's going to get hurt, nobody can promise that, but we're much better off than we were last time, you weren't in the Order then, you don't understand, last time we were outnumbered twenty to one by the Death Eaters and they were picking us off one by one..."
Jenna felt a shiver run down her spine. She felt sick in her stomach. She couldn't get them out of her head. Her mum, her dad, James, Lily, Marlene, Alice, Frank, Fabian and Gideon, and many other Order members that had lost their lives and families in the last war. Her fears had revived.
"Don't worry about Percy," said Sirius abruptly. "He'll come round. It's a matter of time before Voldemort moves into the open; once he does, the whole Ministry's going to be begging us to forgive them. And I'm not sure I'll be accepting their apology," he added.
"And as for who's going to look after Ron and Ginny if you and Arthur died," said Remus, smiling slightly, "what do you think we'd do, let them starve?"
Molly smiled tremulously.
"Being silly," she muttered again, mopping her eyes.
But all of them knew that there was nothing silly about what had just happened. This was what they all feared; for their loved ones to die or wind up hurt.
After around half an hour, Crookshanks walked into their room and Sirius closed its door behind them, as always locking it and soundproofing it with a charm. Jenna then transformed back to her human form. But even so, a long silence fell between them.
They both changed into more comfortable clothes and went to bed, getting under the covers. But neither of them spoke, even though they kept awake with their eyes wide open.
"You saw it too, didn't you?" Jenna finally broke the eerie silence. But she wasn't talking about the boggart which had turned into Harry.
Sirius understood what she meant, and nodded his head weakly without even looking at her.
"James..." he whispered.
Jenna's stomach clenched at the mention of his name. When she had seen Harry's boggart, laying dead on the floor with his eyes staring at the ceiling without seeing, all she could think of was James.
Jenna couldn't close her eyes, because each time she did, the memory of the Halloween fourteen years ago would flash before her. She still saw her brother in her nightmares, the way he had lain at the bottom of the stairs motionlessly, his lopsided glasses still on his face.
"I can't afford to lose anybody else..." Jenna muttered, her sight becoming blurry.
With a short sigh, Sirius turned to face her as they both laid down on the bed. He then wrapped an arm around her waist, bringing Jenna closer him until she could rest her head against his chest.
"It won't happen again," Sirius said soothingly, caressing her long blue hair. "We won't let it."
But even as he spoke those words, Sirius couldn't help but fear the exact same thing. He couldn't afford to lose anyone else either. Specially Jenna.