InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Next time nail coffin shut."

Gideon apparated outside the wards. He had come from Fabian's apartment by way of his closet and was wearing one of his brother's favorite outfits. Even if this didn't work, he was going to go all in on it. He adopted his Fabian-walk, which was just a little less respectable and slightly more insolent than Gideon's native gait. He felt comfortable in it, after all this time.

His sister was sitting outside watching Percy chase after Charlie and Bill, so Arthur was probably inside with the other three. "Good Evening, Molls, you're looking radiant," he said, "Gideon is on his way, so I'll pop inside with Arthur and the others, unless he's in the shack?" He paused for a second. "I don't want to taint the experiment by watching it. Just for formality's sake, repeat back to me the secret you're supposed to keep from him."

Molly had what could only be described as a trashy wizard romance novel held between her hands, nearly at the part where the handsome and mysterious warlock saved the unsuspecting young Muggle from a fate that (by her own standards) was certainly worse than death. Looking up at her brother’s approach almost had her laughing at the similarities between the book character and the man who stood before her.

Who was decidedly not Fabian, but she assumed that it had to be part of the test they were working on, so she didn’t bother to correct him. She opened her mouth to repeat the phrase, but her tongue felt thick and heavy and glued to the roof of her mouth. Nothing seemed to come out but an indignant squeak. She didn’t care for it.

Gideon laughed. "So the secret is 'squeak', is it? Good to know. I guess we'll assume that being tricked out the secret won't work if you can't reveal it voluntarily." Gideon pulled out a legal pad from Fabian's jacket pocket and looked down at it. "All right, we can try just working around the edges. Is the secret about either me or Fabian? Squeak once for yes and twice for no."

Molly glared at her brother when he laughed, but she was still tongue tied so she couldn't give him a piece of her mind. This was a situation she suspected they could use to their advantage when they didn’t want her harping on them. Since she was unable to say anything, she offered her dearest brother a rude hand gesture instead. Despite that, she did think it was prudent to do her best to contribute to the experiment, but she still wasn’t able to give any sort of viable verbiage when he asked around the secret instead. She shook her head as another useless noise escaped her.

Gideon grinned into her glare. Part of growing up was learning when he could and shouldn't ignore her temper. "Oh, it's not? That's good to know. Well, nod your head if it's about The Swallowed Octave, please. Yes? Does he secretly own the place? How many people are in on the secret, is it just you?" It was a switch, intentionally putting questions to her quickly. He'd seen many cases in the Wizengamot hinge on exactly those tactics. People did get flustered. Was it enough to let anything bleed out?

She was still unable to speak until Gideon specifically asked if Fabian secretly owned the Swallowed Octave. Apparently the question was indirect enough about their other secret to grant her the ability to use her tongue again. “Oi!” she yelled loud enough that Charlie and Bill turned their heads. “I obviously can’t say it, you prat. Keep going and I’ll hex you into next Sunday!” She hadn’t truly lost her temper yet, but threatening her brothers was one of her strong suits.

Gideon hadn't been hexed for worse offenses in the past, so he wasn't concerned. Much. "Pft. I already know it. That's the way these things work. Fabian told me the secret before I came, so I'd know if I'd gotten it. I just have to see what you'll tell me. What can you tell me? Who else knows? Is Fabian actually the secret keeper, or did he change that up, too?"

She narrowed her eyes at Gideon’s persistence. Even though she knew it was important, it didn’t make it any less annoying. “I can tell you loads of bloody things, Gids, but I can bet you won’t like half of what I want to say to you right now.” Though she had her doubts about Gideon’s truthfulness, she wasn’t exactly able to voice it. She felt her tongue tie up in her mouth again when he asked about who knew or if Fabian was the secret keeper. Those questions were far too direct to allow leeway. She shook her head again.

"I should just keep asking these because I enjoy seeing you tongue tied, but business before pleasure, as they say. I think we can say that if the oath survives your temper, it can survive anything, so we'll call involuntary revelation protection a pass." Gideon wrote something down on his notepad, or perhaps Fabian's notepad. "On to test number two. Try to reveal anything you can about the secret voluntarily." He looked up at his sister, with the expression he'd used for nearly three decades when he wanted to seem innocent.

It had actually been a moment since she’d just sat and bantered with one of her brothers - despite the teasing being mostly to her detriment, she was rather enjoying the company. Though that might also be because he was more than four feet tall. She opened her mouth for a moment, closed it, then opened it again. “It’s a secret.”

Gid smiled encouragingly. "Yeah, but I need to make sure that if we bind it, it bloody well stays bound. See what you can sneak past it or put one over on Fabian, I mean 'on the oath'. Is it bigger than a breadbox?"

The idea of pulling one over on Fabian was nice, though Molly didn’t expect that to be an option with this oath he’d created. And it was also hard to answer direct questions about something that was technically an abstract concept. The names of the books Fabian told her were not physical objects, though the books were themselves. And would it be all the books together in a clump or each one individually? The entire thought process seemed to tie her tongue again and she let out another annoyed squeak.

Gideon made a note. "Back to 'squeak', got it. Ok, let's try approaching it obliquely, 'Twenty Questions' style. Is the secret something I could pick up and carry? Who is it a secret from?"

Molly shook her head and purposely ignored the questions he was asking so that she would be able to speak again. “It doesn’t seem to work like that. Even if you ask a question that is not correct, as soon as I start thinking about it I get tongue tied. I don’t think there’s much you can ask that could be answered even knowing that there is an oath in place. I don’t know that any forced coercion would be successful.”

Gideon frowned. "That has its own problems. If the secret-guesser knew you might have the secret, but isn't sure, they can ask about it to see if you know. So they don't know what it is, but they know you know something." He bit his lower lip, thinking how they could avoid that issue. "Nevermind. Let's try the last test." Gideon reached into his pocket. "Lily made this specially for you. It's a truth serum, but definitely preggers-safe." He put the pad down. "Let's try not to overthink the secret, or even think about it at all. Just see if you can answer the question I'm asking without it."

Gideon handed her a bottle. "When you're ready… How long have you known the secret?"

Molly wasn’t sure that she could answer the questions without thinking of the secret, but she’d do her best. She took the bottle in hand and drank the contents, only making a slight face at the taste. The only way she could think of to divert her attention from thinking too hard was to look over at the boys playing in the yard and leave only half her attention on what her brother was saying. She was good at dividing her attention after all these years.

With only that small amount of her mind registering the question, the answer of, “Three days,” left her mouth easily enough.

Gideon raised his eyebrows and wrote that down. "Still can't volunteer the secret, even with the serum? You told me before that the secret was about Mum, right?"

“No, I didn’t,” she responded, sounding a little offended. She’d said nothing of the sort. Percy was getting agitated across the lawn; he was red faced and yelling at Bill before he turned to stomp back over where Molly and Gideon were.

“Bill said I didn’t get to go with you when you visit Hogwarts!” Percy complained loudly and Molly sighed.

"Well, I can see you're busy, Mols, and it's been a good chat, lots to think about and do. We'll let you know how this works out. Good bye, King Percival, give my best to King William and King Charles." He stood to leave, not 100% sure if Molly would hex him in the back for leaving her with six children and a compulsion to tell the truth. He liked his odds, but there was a non-zero chance he was wrong.

Molly considered hexing her brother but the more pressing matters of children arguing had to take priority. When had she become this person? To let an opportunity like that slip through her fingers; what a waste. “I’ll definitely be seeing you later, Gideon Prewett.”