Title: With Impartial Step
Author: MelWil
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: They belong to JK Rowling and I make no money from
them
Feedback: I love it - lina_wilson@hotmail.com
Author's note: The title come from Horace's Odes: "Pale death, with
impartial step, knocks at the poor man's cottage and the palaces of
kings."
~*~
It began with black robes.
Everyone wore them. They were asked to by the Daily Prophet, but they would have anyway. It was that kind of event.
Harry never really liked black. Green or blue or red. They were his colours. Black was too harsh, to reminiscent of a past he wanted to forget.
But only his closest friends would have remembered that.
The crowds burst through the doors, anxious to grab an unreserved seat in the back rows of the hall. Everyone wanted to be there, wanted to see everything that was going on inside. They wanted to goggle at the important people, wanted to see if any of them cried. They wanted to see the coffin of the great hero.
It was that kind of event.
The important people were the last to file into the hall - people from the Ministry, famous Quidditch players, Hogwarts teachers, friends and family (in-laws, of course. Poor Harry Potter didn't have people of his own.) They were straight, steady lines of black: no need to rush, no need to make it all happen faster.
They didn't want to be there.
His godfather and his best friend sat in the front row. His teachers and mentors and other significant people filled the remaining seats. No one looked around. No one wanted to see anyone elses tears.
Someone sang a song. Someone made a speech, read a poem. Someone cried, someone coughed, someone fainted.
Someone wasn't there.
They left quicker than they came. They returned to their homes, to cozy fires and comfortable chairs. To big meals and big hugs.
The Boy Who Lived, lived no more.