Written for:
All About You Challenge: Write about a scene that was missed out of The Half-Blood Prince. The funeral was completely skimmed over in the film, so here's a little piece on it.
Valentine-Making Challenge: Write about a Hufflepuff
Chocolate Frog Cards Challenge: Bundimun - write about many people suffering depression together. Okay, so this is grief rather than actual clinical depression, but it mostly fits this prompt.
200 Characters in 200 Days Challenge: Pomona Sprout
If You Dare Challenge: 834. Goodbyes
Words: 682
Remembering Goodbye
Oh, I remember it. I remember it alright. I remember standing there, near the front, and looking out into the crowd instead of at what was going on. I couldn't see a face that didn't have tears rolling down it. Thousands of people were there, and every single one was lost. Completely lost in their own grief. It felt like the whole Wizarding World was there to say their goodbyes.
It didn't surprise me, of course. He'd always had a way, that old man, of making you feel special. I don't really know how to explain it. Oh dear, my eyes have sprung leaks. But when he spoke to you, he was never, not ever, distracted. You'd get his full attention. And he didn't just speak to you, not Albus. Not when I knew him. He listened. Oh, yes, he listened. He would hear exactly what you had to say, and he would understand. Or, at the very least, he would try to. He would hear every word, and if you didn't quite make sense to him, he'd ask the right questions. He'd ask, and listen, and ask, and listen, until he knew exactly what you meant. There's something… there's something very special about a man like that.
My favourite memory of him… oh, it seems like such a silly little thing. My favourite memory was at dinner one night. I'd had a bad day, you see. Half my Mandrakes had died over night when it had gotten too cold, and two of my fifth year students had had a major incident with a Snargaluff. I was no doubt looking completely miserable and just plain fed up. Well, Albus, he just takes one look at me and says, 'Pomona, if all of our days were perfect, we'd forget to appreciate them.' Well, that just cheered me up to no end. Because he was right, wasn't he? And it really made me think. The bad days… they really are a sort of blessing, aren't they?
But the funeral… oh, it wasn't perfect, no. But it felt right that it wasn't. I think that would have been how Albus would have wanted it. Although some would disagree, he never saw himself as perfect, so it would have seemed fitting, for him, that his funeral wasn't. But everyone was there. Even the Merpeople were there. They sang this song at the start, and even though the language and words were completely alien to us, we all understood it, I think. It was so sad, so full of despair. The centaurs came to pay their respects, too. They sent a flurry of arrows up into the sky - oh, you should have heard the crowds! They were terrified the arrows would fall on them! They didn't, of course; they fell short. But that was their way of showing respect, just like the Merpeople's song. It was touching.
The speech fell flat. It was all facts and figures; like the kind of summary of a life you'd find in a history book. Albus wasn't a history book. He might be, one day, of course, but he wasn't then. He was a friend, an employer, a father figure, a patriarch. A brother, a teacher, a headmaster. He was everything and then some. He was something different to all of us, I think. But he wasn't a history book. You don't cry when you read a history book.
But the fire. The fire was perfect. Bright white flames rising higher and higher. Purity, rebirth, innocence. Good. Oh, they were Albus alright. As the smoke billowed up, it was like watching a soul ascend. And then where Albus had lain, there was a tomb encasing him when the fire died down. A white marble tomb.
It's been years, you know. Years have flown by. Sometimes, I still forget he's gone. That part doesn't bother me. But when you forget something like that, eventually… eventually you have to remember. And the remembering, oh. That's the worst part. It's more than a memory, you see. It's the pain that comes with it. The pain of remembering. I think there should be a word for that.
