On the evening of Harry's 18th birthday, he made a visit to the Godric's Hollow graveyard, where Sirius' newly installed gravestone stood, near his parents. The only markings on the stone were Sirius' name and the dates of his birth and death. The bottom of the marker was a depressing expanse of gray. Harry had insisted that the stone not be black.
Harry brought with him a bottle of firewhiskey. It seemed both fitting and horribly horribly wrong, after so many funerals, to hold his own solitary memorial for Sirius. After an hour of sitting in front of the grave, taking small pulls from the bottle as the taste slowly became less important, Ron showed up, slightly out of breath with a grim yet resigned look on his face.
"Hey mate" said Ron softly, sitting next to Harry on the dewy grass.
"Oh Ron. Hello." Harry rolled his head over to stare at his friend, "did you know that Sirius never even had a funeral?"
"I did know that." Ron swallowed the sudden lump that appeared in his throat. Maybe I knew that, but I never thought about it much.
"It's just… it's just, we had all those funerals, and everybody got a gravestone, and a speech about them, and got buried instead of tossed through a veil, and all their friends dressed in black, and people talked about them and people to remember them." Harry swayed slightly, bumping Ron's shoulder.
"I'm sorry Harry." was all that he could think to say. Ron felt like it could never be enough.
"I think I'm, I mean, maybe I'm drunk." Harry furrowed his brows, "I've never been drunk before, I think."
"Unless you were having some mad bashes during the summer without me, then no, you've never been drunk. But you're on your way there now, I reckon."
"I wanted Sirius to be here when I got drunk for the first time. S'that lame?"
"No."
"It just," Harry continued as if Ron hadn't spoken at all, "It just seems like the kind of thing he'd do. And I know that I'm already of age, but it feels more real now, right?"
"How d'you mean, it's more real?"
"Well, 18 is when you're of age in the muggle world, innit? And I thought I was a muggle for ages and ages."
"Right." Ron resisted saying anything about how bizarre this was, since he suspected that dwelling on the muggle world at the moment wouldn't be the best choice.
"So now I'm having a funeral for Sirius." said Harry with a tight set to his jaw, and he flicked his wand at the gravestone before Ron could stop him. Before their eyes, a slightly wobbly 'Beloved Marauder Padfoot' appeared, with 'Mischief Managed' set just below that. Ron snatched Harry's wand away.
"Don't ever cast drunk. Mum would box your ears for that. It's not worth it. Didn't anyone ever tell…" he trailed off, "It's a good gravestone. Sirius would love it."
"You're not supposed to do magic drunk? I guess it makes sense."
Ron felt a pang that no one had ever thought to sit Harry down and lecture him on this, one of the most basic of lessons for teenage wizards and witches. I can't believe no one ever told him to not drink and cast.
"Alright mate, up with you," Ron kept a steadying hand on Harry's elbow as he helped the slightly inebriated wizard to his feet.
"Now Harry, we're going to do two things. No, three things. First, we're going to apparate back home. You're lucky you have a designated apparator, else you'd be sleeping here. Second, we're going to grab a few people that knew Sirius. It shouldn't be hard, we've already got a houseful at The Burrow, so that's a good start. And Third, we're going to have a toast in Sirius' honor. Probably more than one.
I didn't know Sirius as well as I should've, but I reckon he would've wanted a proper party for his funeral, yeah? Like F-Fred. Maybe we'll get some fireworks, some wheezes. It's not even dark yet, we have time. You ready?"
Harry stared at him silent, with an expression Ron hadn't often seen so openly on his face. He was pale and it was clear that his eyes were perilously close to spilling over. It was something like awe, or gratitude, or maybe wonder. Ron turned his head, suddenly unable to look his friend in the eyes any longer.
"Oh, and one more thing," Ron waved his wand and a bunch of long leafy stalks with bunches of tiny white flowers at the end appeared.
"What the hell?" Ron examined the plant, his nose wrinkling as he smelled the fragrant plant, "oops it's catnip. I meant to do Dogwood, but I'm rubbish with plants. It'll do for now."
Somewhere, Sirius laughed.