:~ Cineri Gloria Sera Est :~
"This is unbearable."
The unlocked taboo rocks them viciously, but only Angelina is Gryffindor enough-Weasley enough-to moan these three, devastating words.
Ominous clouds gather as she removes her darkly tinted sunglasses. Ever the perceptive child, little Fred places his small palms to his mother's face, wiping away the tears that have run mascara down her face. Her returned smile only accentuates the sadness sketched across her sullen features. George slightly adjusts the cradleboard in which his daughter rests, then edges closer to rest his chin atop his wife's head as Roxanne peacefully sleeps.
Morning dew glazes the grass, its audacious existence searing the lone web of optimism to which they all cling.
"Dunno, sis." Disagrees an unsure Ron, whilst his sister-in-law rubs the long, brown tresses from her son's eyes. "They've not really spoken, have they?"
There is no ambiguity whatsoever in whom 'they' refers to. The resounding silence conceals Angelina's unwilling, sharp inhale of breath. Muted turbulence surfaces, almost immediately, passing amidst them all.
Their attendance at such a gathering is most unsettling, though furthest from improbable. Somber occasions often are notorious for inspiring unbidden moments of reconciliation.
Draco's pointed face an archetypal portrait of mystery and regret, its pallidity enveloped by the dusk of that unknown and that unsaid. Narcissa is beside him, thin arms folded and lips pursed as she taps her foot, slowly, in distasteful annoyance.
Hermione watches as their cool gazes move, stiffly, from mourner to mourner, brooding whether either haughty blonde is cognizant that none of the assembled particularly fancy spending Sunday morning-or any morning-at a cemetery where ghosts of the Black family delight in inflicting scorn, indifferent that their aspersions must be spat from the damp Earth.
A light rain washes over them as the elderly vicar requests, for the second time, they move closer to the casket. It constricts their throats as they acquiesce his plea, making them inept at issuing further sentiments of refusal. Harry and Ginny rise first, their hands clutching air instead of shoulder of the former's melancholic godson.
Her obituary garners a life of its own, resurfacing before their eyes, flashing, as it rereads the words of a damned past.
"Ashes to ashes..."
His words to not breathe closure into their lungs, just as the preceding service did not. Neither it nor he can pinpoint the silver lining in her untimely death, serene as it might have been.
Nothing can.
"Dust to dust..."
Thankfully, the elegy has failed to chronicle the shrouded horrors of latter years-a single glimpse of her all but frightening the Longbottom boy into a coma as he visits his parents; lying, to soften the blow of explaining to Ted's parents the particulars of his parting; woefully boring holes into the carpet as a battle rages, the infant, unaware of his own life, wailing in her arms; memorializing Nymphadora and Remus as her best friend's daughter kisses her husband at the altar.
It is better this way.
Relief will come for the apprehensive souls when the sun next blossoms into the sky, when the cancers of gloom are plucked from their cores, when their spirits are soothed.
At last, the casket lowers to the ground and is covered.
The clergyman releases an agitated cough, startling the bereaved, as Teddy and Victoire spear the fog and place roses at the base of the headstone.
None amongst them protest when the vicar offers "I pray you good people forever know...Andromeda Tonks was very fortunate" as final consolation.
~:~
Fin.
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