Attention all: I have found a beta. She also happens to have an Italian-
speaking sister, so hooray!
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The wake passed grimly and uneventfully, and then the funeral the following day in much the same manner. Severus scandalized his small extended family by reading a book during the service. His mother, however, had given up on reprimanding him; it seemed she took timid but vicarious satisfaction in infuriating her in-laws. They had always looked down on her.
It was a very important book Severus was reading. He had rediscovered it in the library the night he came home. It was a general handbook on lycanthropy; it was nothing detailed or profound in intent, but reviewing the basics of that area revived his interest in a project he had begun in his internship at St. Mungo's. The project had been purely research oriented; Severus had withheld the hope that he would be able to produce something directly relevant from the data, but the research itself was in a largely uncharted area and therefore full of possibilities.
Severus had been prevented from diving into his book before the service for a number of pressing reasons. For one, he had to make arrangements with Healer Landon to take on his wife and child, which he had done straight from the Nostrum manor. Secondly, Severus had felt compelled to have a... discussion with his father-in-law.
Severus had been very surprised when he had discovered Celeste's mistreatment. He, although rejected by his own family, had assumed that for the most part the pureblood Death Eaters looked after their own. He had never seen domestic neglect from an outsider's perspective; it was strange to see it without a directly personal involvement in it. However, he did not feel wholly inclined to pity her.
After Severus had finished threatening to cut off his father-in-law financially if he did not agree to play according to Severus' rules, Severus had returned home to face his mother's interrogation. While Severus was one part satisfied to see his mother's assertiveness reveal itself when it came to demanding information on her grandchild, he was also one part exasperated with being forced to go over the details of his encounter with his daughter—and more importantly, Celeste—one more time. As though the entire experience hadn't been replaying in his head non-stop since he left Celeste's room. As Severus gave his mother a cruelly brief account of the baby's appearance, he couldn't help but feel the phantom of her warm weight in his arms, and he scowled at himself.
Severus sat in a plush chair that had been moved to the centre of the room along with many others to form the seating for the small assembly of people who attended the funeral. Being the son of the deceased he was required to sit at the very front, next to his mother. While she bowed her head over her handkerchief and cried, Severus bowed his head over his book, to the consternation of his relatives. Occasionally flicking his eyes over to his mother's pale, weeping form, he marveled at the woman's loyalty to a man who had never deserved her faith in him. One part of him dismissed her tears as being foolish; but another part of him was feeling something slightly more ambiguous than disdain.
At his mother's insistence Severus was one of the pallbearers. Along with five other relatives, he levitated the coffin with his wand and floated it down the stone path that led from the back garden to the private cemetery. There, the body had been entered into the ground and the final rites of the funeral were spoken. Before casting the soil onto the dark wooden coffin, Severus's mother unexpectedly cast a bouquet of white flowers into the grave.
Severus was a straggler as he made his way back to the house, where all his relatives would proceed to drink their most expensive wine and abuse the hospitality of the house elves. He was lost in sullen thought, mulling over the significance of the bouquet. The flowers were from their own garden. They were the only thing that grew in great abundance, so poor was the soil. Were the flowers just another indication of how mindlessly loyal his mother had always been to his father?
It wasn't until he was walking through the trellis gate near the back entrance of the house that it occurred to him that the flowers indicated his mother was crying not for her husband, but for someone else entirely.
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The wake passed grimly and uneventfully, and then the funeral the following day in much the same manner. Severus scandalized his small extended family by reading a book during the service. His mother, however, had given up on reprimanding him; it seemed she took timid but vicarious satisfaction in infuriating her in-laws. They had always looked down on her.
It was a very important book Severus was reading. He had rediscovered it in the library the night he came home. It was a general handbook on lycanthropy; it was nothing detailed or profound in intent, but reviewing the basics of that area revived his interest in a project he had begun in his internship at St. Mungo's. The project had been purely research oriented; Severus had withheld the hope that he would be able to produce something directly relevant from the data, but the research itself was in a largely uncharted area and therefore full of possibilities.
Severus had been prevented from diving into his book before the service for a number of pressing reasons. For one, he had to make arrangements with Healer Landon to take on his wife and child, which he had done straight from the Nostrum manor. Secondly, Severus had felt compelled to have a... discussion with his father-in-law.
Severus had been very surprised when he had discovered Celeste's mistreatment. He, although rejected by his own family, had assumed that for the most part the pureblood Death Eaters looked after their own. He had never seen domestic neglect from an outsider's perspective; it was strange to see it without a directly personal involvement in it. However, he did not feel wholly inclined to pity her.
After Severus had finished threatening to cut off his father-in-law financially if he did not agree to play according to Severus' rules, Severus had returned home to face his mother's interrogation. While Severus was one part satisfied to see his mother's assertiveness reveal itself when it came to demanding information on her grandchild, he was also one part exasperated with being forced to go over the details of his encounter with his daughter—and more importantly, Celeste—one more time. As though the entire experience hadn't been replaying in his head non-stop since he left Celeste's room. As Severus gave his mother a cruelly brief account of the baby's appearance, he couldn't help but feel the phantom of her warm weight in his arms, and he scowled at himself.
Severus sat in a plush chair that had been moved to the centre of the room along with many others to form the seating for the small assembly of people who attended the funeral. Being the son of the deceased he was required to sit at the very front, next to his mother. While she bowed her head over her handkerchief and cried, Severus bowed his head over his book, to the consternation of his relatives. Occasionally flicking his eyes over to his mother's pale, weeping form, he marveled at the woman's loyalty to a man who had never deserved her faith in him. One part of him dismissed her tears as being foolish; but another part of him was feeling something slightly more ambiguous than disdain.
At his mother's insistence Severus was one of the pallbearers. Along with five other relatives, he levitated the coffin with his wand and floated it down the stone path that led from the back garden to the private cemetery. There, the body had been entered into the ground and the final rites of the funeral were spoken. Before casting the soil onto the dark wooden coffin, Severus's mother unexpectedly cast a bouquet of white flowers into the grave.
Severus was a straggler as he made his way back to the house, where all his relatives would proceed to drink their most expensive wine and abuse the hospitality of the house elves. He was lost in sullen thought, mulling over the significance of the bouquet. The flowers were from their own garden. They were the only thing that grew in great abundance, so poor was the soil. Were the flowers just another indication of how mindlessly loyal his mother had always been to his father?
It wasn't until he was walking through the trellis gate near the back entrance of the house that it occurred to him that the flowers indicated his mother was crying not for her husband, but for someone else entirely.