Death is hardest on those left behind
A Valediction Forbidding Mourning
James arrived home, that evening, to an empty house. He frowned; it was getting on ten o'clock, and yet his parents weren't home. Taking out his wand for good measure, he walked through the house. He went into the table and saw that his parents' dinner was still on the table.
Something was not right.
He whirled around as he heard a crack outside the house and the doorbell ring.
'Oh Lord,' he breathed, feeling suddenly rather religious as he approached the door tentatively, gripping his wand tightly.
He unlocked the door, standing to one side tentatively, before sighing upon seeing his Aunt Pamela.
'Aunty Pam' he sighed, relieved. 'What are you doing here? My parents aren't…'
He trailed off as he saw that his aunt had tears streaming down her cheeks.
'James… you need to come to the hospital,' she whispered.
James felt his heart beating in his throat, which felt constricted.
'What is it? Is it my parents?' he asked urgently.
Pamela nodded.
'Your father he… he…' she faltered.
'What?' James interrupted impatiently.
Pamela's eyes widened as she put a hand to cup James' cheek.
'Oh, James… I'm so sorry, he… he… he died,' she sobbed, hugging James to her.
---
James had no recollection of what followed after that… it was all like some horrific, mind-numbing nightmare; his father's body, his mother's crying… people trying to offer him their condolences.
He just wanted to get out.
'I need to go for a walk,' he said abruptly, after having had no sleep that night, whilst one of the Mungo's counselors was speaking to him.
With that, he disapparated with a crack and arrived home.
Home where his father would no longer be.
As he ran to his room, he realised that this was the first serious thing that had ever happened to him and felt disgusted with himself that he had lived his whole life as a joke.
Suddenly, frivolous things such as getting Lily Evans to date him didn't seem so important anymore. He had no desire to touch his broomstick he just… he just wanted to run.
A grueling run where he wouldn't have to think, but punish his body for being so shallow.
Running out of the house, tears streaming down his face, he started. He did not think to pace himself, but ran hard and fast, ignoring the stitch which had formed in his side after fifteen minutes.
He hadn't even been with his father for his final hours. Instead, he had been with Mr Evans.
The thought sickened him and he was suddenly overcome with the urge to throw up. He did so in the nearby bushes and sank to the ground, unable to run any more and succumbed, finally, to the tears which he had fought to keep at bay since he had first found out.
'Sirius, get up!' Helen said urgently, shaking him.
Sirius sat up slowly, rubbing his eyes before becoming concerned upon noting the tears in Helen's eyes.
'What's wrong?' he frowned, brushing them gently with hand.
Helen's eyes widened.
'Mr P…Potter is d…dead,' she cried, burying her face in her hands.
'WHAT?' Sirius asked, springing up and shaking Helen by the shoulders.
He looked desperate and Helen knew why; Mr Potter had been the only true father figure which Sirius had ever known.
'I g…got this l…letter f…from Mrs P…Potter,' she hiccouged, handing it to Sirius.
He read it feeling as though he had a talon in his heart.
Dear Helen and Sirius,
Last night Richard died and James has now disappeared. I am finding it very difficult to cope with everything. Could you please try and help James? You are his best friends.
Emily
There were splotches on the ink from Mrs Potter's tears.
Sirius took a sharp intake of breath. He suddenly felt very angry.
'Why are they all dying? Why?' he demanded of Helen who took a jaded breath. 'First Uncle Alphard and now… now…'
He couldn't say it.
Helen hugged him impulsively and Sirius cried for the first time since he was a little boy.
'Oh God…' he whispered, gripping Helen tightly to try and stop his hands from shaking so much.
When they eventually separated, Helen realised that James needed them.
'We need to find James,' she said to Sirius who wiped his eyes and nodded.
'I came as soon as I could…' Remus said, getting up from the Potters' front porch where he was waiting. 'Is it true?' he added in a whisper.
Sirius and Helen nodded gravely and Remus' face paled.
'Poor James,' he said quietly.
'Does Peter know?' Sirius asked.
'I suppose so, though he didn't pass his apparition test so it might take him longer to get here,' Remus said.
They stood in silence.
'Do you know where James could be?' Helen asked
They shook their heads.
'He's not inside,' Remus sighed.
'Shall we split up, then?' Helen said.
They all nodded and went their separate ways.
---
Sirius had been walking around aimlessly for nearly two hours when he found James slumped by a bush, hugging his knees to his chest.
'Hey mate,' Sirius said heavily, sitting next to him.
James looked at Sirius and chewed his lip.
'I just can't believe it,' he said after a while. 'It was so… unexpected, I…'
Sirius nodded and tried not to break down in front of James.
'How can he just die like that? How? I don't understand! I saw him in the morning and he was fine!' James asked Sirius desperately.
Sirius stared at James, feeling the stinging in his eyes.
'I don't know, mate… he was getting on, though…' he said quietly.
James gulped and quickly wiped his bloodshot eyes.
'I know,' he whispered. 'But mum's the same age as dad too. Does that mean… oh God, I couldn't live if she left too… I can't deal with this,' he said, burying his face in his knees.
'He was great, your dad,' Sirius said eventually. 'He was… he treated me like a son… and he really loved you- both of your parents do.'
'He was the best,' James nodded.
'He really was,' Sirius sighed.
James chewed his lips which felt swollen and were cracked.
'We'll all miss him, mate. We will… and we'll never forget him because you can't forget a man as great as him,' Sirius said seriously.
James took a sharp intake of breath.
'Let's get you home, though, because your mum's really worried about you,' Sirius said, patting James on the shoulder.
James looked up.
'How is she?' he asked in a strangled voice. 'I… I shouldn't have left like that, but I couldn't stand it all… how's she doing?'
Sirius shrugged.
'I don't know. She sent us a letter telling us what happened and asked us if we could help look for you,' he said.
James sighed and got up.
'Let's get back, then.'
When Peter finally arrived, the Marauders retreated somberly to James' room. Mrs Potter was devastated and walked around the house, holding one of Mr Potter's shirt to her heart, in a daze. Relatives would flit in and out every now and then, but mostly, a deathly silence hung over the house.
Helen tried her best to help Mrs Potter. She organised certain things for the funeral the next day, telling Mrs Potter to try and get some rest and that she would help sort it out.
But Mrs Potter would not rest; insisting on cooking the refreshments, cleaning the house and checking and rechecking with the celebrant the plans and schedule of the service.
Upon seeing Mrs Potter's whole body starting to shake so much that she could hardly stand properly, Helen sat her down.
'Mrs Potter, please- just take a seat and have a cup of tea, at least. I'll fix it for you and then we can make sure that everything is in place,' she said soothingly.
Mrs Potter did not need to be told twice, sinking into an armchair, clutching at her husband's shirt desperately.
Helen felt terrible for it-but she had to. Oerwise, Mrs Potter herself would be joining her husband very quickly indeed. She slipped a few drops of sleeping draught into Mrs Potter's tea.
After a few seconds, Mrs Potter slumped into a deep sleep and Helen managed to sleep-walk her to her bed.
Peter looked at his watch nervously. He was expected for a meeting at eight o'clock, and it was now seven. James was now asleep. Remus had been sensible enough to take a leaf out of Helen's book. Upon seeing how twitchy James had become, by adding a few drops of sleeping draught into James' cocoa. Sirius had gone outside to talk to see how Helen was dealing with Mrs Potter.
'Hey Remus, I… my mum made me promise her to be back by eight. She's become really worried since all those killings, so I have to go, but I'll be here tomorrow morning,' he lied smoothly to Remus.
The brilliant thing about being stupid was that no one ever suspected him of being smart enough to lie.
Remus shrugged.
'Okay, then. See you tomorrow,' he said heavily. 'Did you want me to get you home with side-along apparition?' he added.
Peter pursed his lips, not having considered this.
Then again, the meeting was closer to his home than James'…
'Thanks, that would really help,' he nodded.
Friday came all too soon and they all donned black robes; Mrs Potter needing the assistance of Helen and her sister-in-law, Pamela, to even get hers on- she was crying so much.
There were many people at the funeral and Sirius and Remus were very good about keeping distant relatives away from James who looked dazed as he stared at his father's coffin. Peter was ushering people into their seats, and Helen was trying to accommodate to Mrs Potter's increasingly hysterical requests that she check that the refreshments were properly set out.
Eventually, James joined his mother in the front row of seats, taking her hand in his own, and the service started.
A few relatives spoke. Mrs Potter attempted to, but found that she could not. James did not even seem to have heard or taken in a word of the proceedings as he continued to stare at his father's coffin, tears sliding down his pale cheeks.
'And now, Pamela Potter, Richard's sister, would like to say a few words,' the celebrant said.
Pamela rose from her seat next to Emily Potter and went to the front of the congregation. Wiping her eyes and clearing her throat, she began:
'Richard was my dear elder brother. You all knew him for the wonderful, funny, kind, brave and generous man he was. He always looked out for me when I was younger and…' a small, sad smile came to Pamela's face, 'I used to resent it. Now, though, I can only appreciate it because that showed exactly what kind of person he was; a loving and caring one. Whenever I was sad, all I needed was one of his jokes to brighten my mood- and he always seemed to have them! If only he could tell us one now, I'm sure he would be able to make us feel much better.'
Many people laughed quietly at this as Pamela paused, blowing her nose before continuing:
'Whilst Richard leaves us all, there are two people in particular who we should think of now; his wife, Emily, and his son, James. James, you are a wonderful boy and I know your father was always very proud of you and will always continue to be proud of you; wherever he is, watching you as you continue in life. Emily, you have been his devoted and loving wife ever since you two married fifty years ago, making you a sister to me…'
Emily Potter started sobbing now, trying to desperately muffle her loud crying in her damp handkerchief.
'Because I know of no way in which making the passing of someone whom we love, as much as we all loved Richard, easier, I have decided to end my eulogy with the words of the well-esteemed poet, John Donne in his poem: 'A Valediction Forbidding Mourning,' because I know that Richard would have wanted exactly that: to forbid us to mourn for him.'
Pamela took a deep breath and put on her reading glasses.
'I like this poem,' Helen whispered to Sirius, leaning on his shoulder as he hugged her to him.
Pamela began to read:
As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls, to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
"The breath goes now," and some say, "No:"
So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.
Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears;
Men reckon what it did, and meant;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.'
Emily Potter's crying became louder at this moment and James, also crying, put an arm around her and hugged her.
Pamela paused and sniffed before continuing to read, her voice now becoming gravelly.
.
'Dull sublunary lovers' love
(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.
But we by a love so much refin'd,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.
Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.
If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the' other do.
And though it in the centre sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.
Such wilt thou be to me, who must
Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end, where I begun.'
There was a reflective silence as Pamela finished and left to join Emily Potter; hugging her and whispering into her ear as everyone stood up and James, Sirius and two other men who were James' relatives went to the front and carried the coffin out.
Both Sirius and James were struggling to remain composed- the both of them having tears streaming down their cheeks.
They left James and Mrs Potter alone that evening after the funeral party had gone and they had cleaned the house. Both James and Mrs Potter looked as though they wanted to be left alone with each other.
After a while of staring into the fire with James leaning on his mother's shoulder, Mrs Potter spoke.
'James, we got the letter just before dinner and Richard…'
Her breath caught, and she reached into her pocket, handing James the letter.
'Head Boy?' James said in disbelief, before tossing the letter aside.
It seemed so irrelevant at present.
'He was very proud of you, James; he really was. We were both very proud of you,' Mrs Potter sighed.
James gulped.
'I'll really miss him, mum,' he said, fresh tears springing to his eyes.
Emily Potter blinked furiously as she kissed the top of her son's head- her and Richard's cherished 'miracle child'- and ruffled his hair.
'We'll all miss him,' she whispered, hugging him tightly.
'Did you say that James was coming to pick you up tonight?' Mr Evans asked Lily who was sullenly writing how much she hated James in her diary.
It was nine o'clock now, and they had arranged for him to pick her up at seven.
He had stood her up.
'The bastard,' Lily seethed, under her breath.
She looked up at her father.
'Please never talk to me about that despicable boy ever again,' she said flatly, before turning back to her diary and writing all the more furiously; swear words flowing abundantly in her state of anger and hurt.
She felt so cheated and silly. She had finally agreed to going out with him and he had not even had the decency to turn up.
He really was every bit the dirty little toerag which her first instincts told her he was.
'I love you,' Helen whispered to Sirius that night, leaning her head on his chest and wishing that the heart beat which she now listened to would never cease.
He wrapped his arms around her and sighed as he realised that he was losing more and more people in the world who he cared about.
'I love you,' he said.
They didn't need to tell this to each other, and they hardly ever used the phrase which was so often abused by people. Somehow, after the events of the past two days, however, they needed to say it as a means of reassurance.
As Helen fell asleep, weary from constantly running around for Mrs Potter or James, Sirius began to seriously think about his life and the world he lived in.
There were more and more murders every day due to Death Eater rampages and raids. It scared him because whilst he could deal with Alphard and Richard's deaths as they were due to natural causes, he did not think he could recover from the death of one of his friends. Yet, with experienced Aurors noted for their dueling skills being murdered on a daily basis, Sirius couldn't escape the thought that it was inevitable that either he would die, or someone close to him would.
He would have much rathered it to be the former; at least he wouldn't have to deal with any emotional pain. Physical pain he was able to deal with easily, but not emotional pain; he had spent too much of his life repressing his emotions.
His friends had thought that his past history with girls had been purely about sex and trying to break some invented record of sleeping with as many girls as possible. Whilst he tried to convince himself that this was his reasoning too, he knew that there was a deeper, less shallow reason for it all. It was a need to feel wanted and to receive attention from someone; to be admired by them. There was such a pitiful amount of love and attention which he received at home that he had tried to compensate for it through those many affairs. As they were so flimsy and conducted with girls who had no idea about who he truly was, however, he was always inevitably disappointed. It wasn't as though those girls had never tried to get him to talk; to try and pry into his mind. It was the fact that he had never considered them worthy of knowing.
And they weren't.
They had no idea what it was to be administered the Cruciatus Curse by your own father at the tender age of eleven for being sorted into Gryffindor. They did not know what it was to be receive the cane whenever their piano teacher delivered an unfavourable report on their daily progress… they did not know.
For them, their interest was for the superficial reason of being that singular girl whom Sirius Black had chosen to confide in. They did not honestly care about him; they only cared for him in relation to how he made them feel and seem to the rest of the student body.
Therefore, he settled for having quick affairs where he managed to feel that attention and want, but didn't stick around long enough to know enough about the girl to feel the let down which always came whenever he managed to learn a bit more about her personality.
That was how Sirius went for so many years.
He found it ironical, then, that he sought Helen. Perhaps it was the fact that she so overtly disliked him that he wanted the ego-boost of achieving what everyone else thought he could never have. More importantly, though, was that it linked to the fact that if he was able to change Helen from hating him to liking (even loving) him, then he stood a chance in having his parents loving him too.
But there was something else. She understood him properly.
She was different.
She was not popular and yet she didn't give a damn; She got around, but wasn't a slut.
She knew what it felt like to be hurt and what it was to desperately want to be loved by one's parents. She understood what he sought in his history with girls, because she had pretty done the same thing with her 'distractions'.
'Distractions,' Sirius thought to himself.
It was a fitting word. Helen had given these boys this title because she thought that they were a distraction from schoolwork, but he knew it was more than that- it was a distraction from the misery of her existence.
It was this mutual understanding which made it impossible for him to ever tire of her. She had her faults and they drove Sirius crazy and yet, at the same time, were those annoying things about her that made him need and want her even more. She would always challenge him, seemed more reluctant to commit than most playboys… and was a mystery to him; he still did not know that much about her. She was like a never-ending puzzle- each day he would find another piece that would make more sense to him, yet he could never understand that whole picture.
But perhaps she felt the same way about him.
They both kept their pasts quiet, as though they would disappear and become forgotten if only they were left alone for long enough.
Poor James. He really wasn't ready for something like that, even though JK always said that his parents were very old as it was when they had him. Poor Mrs Potter too. She's going to have an empty house now that James is going back to school soon. Poor Sirius... oh, and poor Lily. She thinks he stood her up on purpose.
Now that I have finished the next chapter, I can give you one of these:
'I don't want to talk to you. You cheated on me,' - Helen Asteria to Sirius Black.
Yes. This is going to be the fight of all fights between those two. We're going to find out everything about Helen growing up- including why her parents hate her. We're also going to learn more about Sirius and what turned him over from all of that 'Toujurs Pur'.
Oh, and there's going to be a little bit more on Remus as well in the next chapter.
So. I was immensely disappointed, shall we say, with the amount of reviews for the last chapter. If you want the next one, (i.e. tomorrow) you shall have to do better than that. So... get typing!
Oh, and a very BIG thankyou to everyone who has been reviewing. You're all wonderful and you hold a very special place in my heart :)
Lots of love, Anya
