Disclaimer/AN: I do not own any rights to the Harry Potter franchise, if I did i think I'd have a much nicer car than my two feet.
This basic plot has been floating around in my head since the fourth book came out but I could never get anything to anywhere near the point where I liked it, so this is basically a "Fuck it, We'll Do it Live" kinda story, no Betas, no major editing, and no regular updates I do have a life i.e. collage and a job.
Prologue
The funeral was a subdued affair, oh there had been wakes held in His honor around the country and several state services but His body had been nowhere near any of those, the actual event was extremely small attended by only around two dozen or so of His friends and comrades in arms who had survived the years of continuous fighting that had destroyed England far worse than Hitler could have ever dreamed in his wildest meth fueled dreams.
In the crowd of attendees there were as many muggle military personnel as there were wizards and witches. Though in the last few years this had become an almost common occurrence in the north it was rare that so many of those in attendance were the leaders of what was first the resistance and was later the Royal Government of The United Kingdom of Great Britain, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales In Scotland (commonly referred to simply as The Royal Government). These men and women were either dressed in the uniforms of their offices (which ranged from that of a Brigadier General to the black and red ceremonial robes of a Hit Wizard) or their finest clothes suitable for a funeral (in one case this happened to be a pair of slightly singed black day robes). Although there was no real cohesion to the way they were dressed it in a way seemed to stress the fact that the Man being laid to rest had stood far larger than life and that while He wasn't physically or mentally extraordinary man to ever walk upon the face of the earth, He had stood taller than life while He still breathed which is more than ninety-nine percent of the world can say.
When the gathered had found their places His body was borne out of the chapel house in a ebony casket, carried on the shoulders of thee Hit Wizards and three Royal Marines, a symbol of His station in life. It was one that He had expressed many times while alive that He hoped would never happen again. The casket was followed by four pipers playing the Last Post, they followed up until the casket was placed directly over the grave at which point they stood to the side and began to play the flowers of the forest as it was lowered by a simple motor.
There was no eulogy for He was not a man who would have wanted to know that someone had worked for hours thinking about what to say about Him to a group of people who knew Him far better than any of guardians ever did. They all knew that He would have been embarrassed at making them stand outside for even this short amount of time. The only magic cast was a simple spell to fill in his grave. Many of the attendees went to the local pub for a few pints and quiet toasts in His honor, others went to their homes to start the long reconstruction of their country. But no matter where they went afterward and whatever they did, they were the few who were able to say that they were at His funeral. Not that any of them ever did, ever the one or two who wrote memoirs much later in life, none of them ever mentioned the funeral. As a result it seems that no one will ever be able to find the simple headstone that reads:
Harry James Potter
1980-2005
So Others May Live
Excerpt from the 2095 edition of Rise and Fall of The Dark Lords
