TITLE: Funereal
FANDOM: Harry Potter – James
CHARACTERS: James
PROMPT: (030) Death
WORDCOUNT: 551
RATING: G
A/N: Read this while listening to 'Mad World' by Roland Orzabal – suitably depressing.
He stands on the brink of a gaping maw, deep and dark and slightly damp. A light drizzle of rain mirrors the cold, limp feeling inside him. Around stand his strengths, his supports, his friends and Professors. There are no family members. There are none to come.
Two wooden boxes and a bouquet of flowers. The bodies are down there, cool to the touch, skin tinged blue, hair still growing. They look peaceful with eyes shut in sleep. The linings are matching crimson velvet, and their finest dress robes a rich black. All James wants is to rip the lids off and curl up like he did as a child, when nightmares chased him to the comfort of their double bed. He wants her to open her eyes, smile at him, pat his head and tell him in her sweet voice, "Everything will be all right." He wants him to throw an arm around his middle, ruffle his hair, place a kiss on his crown.
James is not a child now. He knows he can't want these things anymore.
The priest makes a sign of the cross and closes his bible, and people begin to drift away. They are vague, black shapes in the rain; he feels vague and black himself, set adrift in a world without colour or shape. Someone tugs at his arm, but he has to stay. He has to watch the grave fill, the maw close, the final end. It will make it more real.
Clods of earth thump against the wood, falling apart into smaller pieces. They sound like the beating of his heart, steady and ongoing. He wishes it would stop for a while, to give him a chance to catch up. It feels like the world is spiralling faster than he can follow, and he is lagging far behind. He feels like he's falling into an abyss. He feels like death.
There are things he must do now, places he has to be. The wake is at his house and he has to be available for his guests. He needs to be strong, and thank everyone for coming. Responsibilities tumble onto his shoulders like mounds of earth. Someone places a hand on his shoulder, meant to be comforting, but James is numb.
They leave him by the hole, murmurs of sympathy on their lips, until finally he is alone with the gravediggers and two corpses. It's so stupid, he thinks. His parents were such strong, vibrant people. Last summer his father fell off the roof and bounced back up without a scratch. It doesn't make any sense. It feels like something vital in the world has gone awry, for one flick of a wand to end everything.
It's so hard to think of them in the past tense. He keeps expecting them to appear beside him, as sombre as he, like they did at his uncle's funeral. He can't grasp how it's possible that they're gone from his life. But he knows it will sink in at some point, when he's alone in his room without the comforting sound of two people downstairs.
He glances back into the grave, deep and dark and slightly damp. There's a worm wriggling on his mother's coffin. His father's has been swallowed into darkness.
Nauseous, James turns away.