Although the twins kept comforting their mother, Mrs. Weasley's crying did not stop. Her sobbing quickly caught the attention of everyone in the kitchen.
"What happened?"
Lupin was the first to rush into the room, with Sirius, Tonks, and the children close behind him. Moody dragged his heavy footsteps along, arriving last.
As soon as they entered the room, Ron and Ginny immediately ran toward Mrs. Weasley and, together with their twin brothers, began comforting their mother. Even though Ron and Ginny had no idea what had happened.
"What is it?" Lupin looked at Eda.
Only Eda could answer that question now. Mrs. Weasley could not stop crying, while the twins kept comforting her.
"Boggart, Professor Lupin," Eda said.
As she spoke, Eda's eyes glanced toward the Weasley children. Everyone immediately understood what had happened in the living room. During this holiday, although Mrs. Weasley had not said anything, everyone could see how worried she was.
"Molly, don't be like this." Lupin said gloomily as he walked toward her. "It's only a stupid Boggart."
Mrs. Weasley was leaning against Fred's shoulder, crying her heart out. Between sobs, she said, "I keep seeing them dead... dead! I keep... keep seeing it! I... I even dream about it..."
They say daughters are their mothers' little cotton-padded jackets, and Ginny certainly proved it at a time like this.
Seeing her mother so heartbroken, with her brothers' comfort not helping and her father still away, the youngest Ginny buried herself in Mrs. Weasley's arms.
Feeling her youngest daughter's dependence on her, Mrs. Weasley pulled herself together considerably and managed to force a faint smile.
"I'm just too worried," she said, tears once again rolling down her cheeks. "Half the family is in the Order of the Phoenix. I'm just too worried... Percy won't talk to us anymore. If something happens to Arthur and me, we won't even have the chance to reconcile with him... Ron and Ginny are still so young. Who will take care of the two of them?"
"Molly, be strong," Lupin said. "Things are different this time. We've gotten off to a favorable start, and we're in a much better situation. Even if something really did happen to you and Arthur, what do you think we'd do? Let Ron and Ginny go hungry?"
Mrs. Weasley gave a trembling smile.
"Actually, the day I came here, I went to see Percy," Eda suddenly said. "Although he still hasn't figured things out, and some of the things he said were infuriating, he still cares deeply about all of you."
Everyone in the room looked at Eda. No one knew that she had gone to persuade Percy, not even Fred and George.
"Nothing will happen, Molly. You're worrying over nothing," Sirius said. "Percy will come back. He'll come to his senses. As for us, all we need to do is defeat the darkness."
Moody also said gruffly, "You haven't forgotten what Dumbledore said, have you? This time, we've also got Twist. You watched her grow up, so you should know what a formidable little thing she is!"
Hearing this, Sirius also pointed at his shoulder and exaggeratedly said, "Exactly, a one-foot-long scar! A whole foot!"
"Bah!" Eda laughed as well. "Fred, George, and I have all changed your bandages. That scar is an inch long at most!"
Of course, the scar could not possibly have been as exaggerated as a foot long, but it was not only an inch long either.
Mrs. Weasley finally stopped crying and laughed through her tears, amused by Sirius and Eda playing off each other.
"I'm being so foolish," she murmured, wiping her eyes. "Don't tell Arthur. I don't want him to know I was being so foolish."
Then Mrs. Weasley reminded the children that they were not allowed to tell their father. She especially repeated it several times to the twins, almost to the point of pulling their ears.
Seeing that Mrs. Weasley had pulled herself together again, the people in the living room dispersed. Some went back to continue drinking, while others returned to their rooms to rest.
Mrs. Weasley also wanted to go back to her room to rest, but her little cotton-padded jacket, Ginny, insisted on sleeping with her mother.
There was nothing Mrs. Weasley could do, so she took her youngest daughter with her.
The twins silently returned to their room upstairs, with Eda following behind them. She could tell that Fred and George had something on their minds.
There was very little light in the room. The three of them simply sat there quietly, each staying in a corner. They could not clearly see each other's movements, nor could they see each other's expressions.
The image of the Boggart repeatedly transforming into the corpses of every member of the Weasley family kept flashing before Eda's eyes. Mrs. Weasley's worry and anxiety were feelings she had once experienced herself.
"Only today did I realize that the me who always thought I had grown up is actually still a child." A voice came from the darkness. It was difficult to tell whether it was Fred or George. The twin brothers really were too alike.
"Yeah, Fred. We started feeling proud of ourselves after making some money, and we thought we were men just because we could cast spells outside school." George said, "We've still got a long way to go!"
Just a few minutes ago, they had been haggling with Mundungus in the kitchen over a bag of Venomous Tentacula seeds. A few minutes later, they had seen their own mother crying over their "corpses."
The sudden change in scenes made the brothers' hearts feel as though they had been stabbed by a sharp knife.
Although they were not real corpses and it was not real death, Fred and George had still felt the weight of death.
"Fortunately, you two finally realized that," Eda said softly. "Do you two know that the way you wave your wands around looks exactly like baboons swinging sticks? Two not particularly clever baboons, at that."
The heavy atmosphere in the room was immediately broken by light laughter, along with the sound of one of the twins hitting the bed.
"That's the funniest joke I've ever heard from you! Hahaha..."
"Next time anyone says you have no sense of humor, I'll tell them about this! Hahaha..."
Fred and George kept laughing, rolling around and hitting things all over the place. But Eda's words were not actually funny. The twins simply wanted to laugh, using their laughter to pull themselves together.
They were men. They were adults. They would use their laughter to tell themselves to be strong, not to be weak, to take care of their mother like men and look after their younger brother and sister.
Sometimes, growing up was an extremely slow process, filled with waiting and suffering. Sometimes, growing up could happen very quickly.
Perhaps all it took was a few minutes, or perhaps just one event happening right before your eyes to serve as the catalyst.
Fred and George had thought they had grown up long ago because they knew a lot of things and because they had made quite a bit of money.
But tonight, when they saw Mrs. Weasley crying helplessly, they realized that they were nothing more than children who had considered themselves mature.
From the moment they realized this, they had truly begun walking the path of growing up.
That road might be long or short. The only thing it had in common was that it was not an easy road to walk, filled with hardships and suffering.
Fred and George certainly were not the only ones who felt this way tonight. Harry, tossing and turning restlessly in bed at this very moment, felt the same.
After a few light coughs, the twins stopped laughing. One of the brothers said, "Eda, can we really make it through this? How many of the people here tonight will actually make it to the end?"
The room was too dark, like impenetrable fog, like low-hanging storm clouds.
Eda snapped her fingers softly, and a gentle glow lit up at her fingertips. The faint light was nowhere near enough to pierce the darkness, but it brought a little warmth and a little hope to their hearts.
Through that faint light, Eda saw a trace of moisture on Fred and George's faces.
Perhaps Eda had seen wrong. Perhaps the twins really had just cried. It did not matter. There was nothing wrong with it. Everyone had moments of weakness. Those who had never cried through a long night were not qualified to speak of life.
"No matter how long the night, the day will eventually come," Eda said softly, comforting them.
"That actually makes some sense." George reached up and rubbed his face haphazardly. "Did you come up with that?"
"No," Eda said. The glow left her fingertips and spiraled toward the center of the room. "Shakespeare's Macbeth."
Fred vigorously rubbed his cheeks and asked, "Shakespeare? Who's that?"
"A Muggle who's been dead for several centuries."
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