His mother had dropped off clothes for them at The Barrow. They took turns showering beneath a frigid waterfall in one of the side rooms; an almost painful experience that was somehow worse that the duelling master's gruelling swims in the fjord because he wasn't swimming to keep warm.
Hermione had gone first on the assumption that it would take her longer to get ready, so by the time Gellert emerged, Hermione was already waiting. He'd been dressed primarily in grey, but the undershirt was a tawny orange, as was the trimming and lining of the long, formal robes. Hermione was dressed in similar colours, the hemline of her somber grey gown embroidered with little orange fleur-de-lis and her hair hidden beneath a shimmering grey veil. He offered her his arm, waiting for a moment for Berg.
'Frau Hassel always hated her family colours.' Hermione remarked morosely, picking at the orange girdle of her dress.
Their beasts were almost ready - Kelpie, who'd been to wixen funerals before, stood solidly as the guardians carefully covered his harness with a grey cloth, tying it on with orange ribbons. Katana, meanwhile, was having none of it. He didn't like the fabric tangling with his wings, and kept flapping them around and lashing his tail to sent the guardians flying.
Eventually it was settled that Hermione would ride without a saddle, using the cloth folded up like a blanket and a thick leather strap as a girth.
They travelled to Hexemeer first to meet his mother, so that nobody could learn where they'd been hiding. His mother look far more like the put together, powerful witch that he was used to. She carried a bundle of thin twigs, bound with the only flash of Grindelwald blue in their entire group, and she quickly passed another to Hermione which had the slightly greenish tinted blue of her own family colours.
Then they turned around and headed back through the portal.
The weather at the Hassel's ancient family holding was perfectly suited to the mood. A dreary, misty rain fogged the air, concealing the many grey cloaked figures. The track beneath the horses' hooves was damp, squelching slightly with every step. Even the trees seemed despondent, the last autumn leaves drooping from bare branches. Every now and again, one would lose it's battle with gravity and drop with unembellished purpose to the floor, where a beast's hooves would grind it into the mud barely a moment later.
There was already quite a crowd gathered just before the long bridge that led towards Fort Kiefer. The squat wooden castle was barely more than a dark smudge on it's little island in the middle of the lake, but he could see the orange on the flags at half mast.
They joined the crowd, mixing into the milling group. Even among so many people, the noise seemed deadened. The beasts had caught onto the mood because there was none of the usual rowdy behaviour between hippogriffs and thestrals.
'Look.' Hermione nudged Gellert's foot with her own and jerked her chin towards the bridge. Gellert squinted, then recognised Albert Freidl's dark complexion. The younger boy was holding his beast's reins, but almost seemed to be hiding behind the muscular hippogriff. Gellert hadn't seen the other boy since his father had departed from the coven.
'Frau Hassel was his aunt.' Gellert reminded her. It was only to be expected that he would be present, even if his family had abandoned the old ways. In fact, there were probably a number of progressionist families present, even if they'd forgone their modern ideas of wearing black to a funeral in favour of the more traditional donning of the departed's family colours. Frau Hassel had been a respected potioneer among both factions and nobody was disrespectful enough to bring politics into a funeral.
They heard the voices first; snatches of song which carried across the water from the group that made it's slow journey across the lake. Within moments, silence had fallen across the crowd and every eye was turned to watch. As they came closer, the words became clearer and the figures more pronounced. At the head of the procession was the flame bearer, his torch flickering with translucent, pale flame in the rain. Then came the shield bearers. The orange shields were a blaze of colour among the washed out assembly and it was almost impossible to focus on anything other than what they bore.
Frau Hassel's body hadn't been whole when she died, transformed into some kind of powder, so each of the three massive wooden shields carried a large chest.
Behind them was the rest of the family. The marriage of Frau and Herr Hassel had marked the union of two of the largest ancient families, so the procession was almost like a host of ghosts as it shuffled down the bridge.
As they drew closer, the crowd shifted and swirled like an eddy in the fog to form a corridor from the bridge to the track. As the procession stepped foot onto land, the mourners began to reach up and place conjured flowers on the shields, each coloured to represent traits that would be missed in the deceased. Gellert conjured his own green bloom with a whispered incantation, reaching it up between Kelpie's ears to place it right next to the middle chest. A boy, barely reaching up to Kelpie's knees, waved an orange leaf, probably rescued from the ground. Without a thought, Gellert plucked the leaf from his hand and secured it in next to the final chest. The boy nodded with all the solemn respect of a young heir, his ring dangling conspicuously from his neck. Gellert nodded back.
As the procession passed, the crowd closed up behind, following the family to a large clearing. They were silent, except for the creak of harness and the Latin singing. It sliced through the damp air like a breath of icy wind, too ethereal for the plain reality of the funerary procession. He knew of the song, although he didn't know the words. It was a call to the spirit, awakening it in the mortal remains and alerting it that it's journey to the next plane was about to begin. The ancient song spoke of the way across and the land beyond, where all who had gone before already waited.
The song ended as they reached the large pyre. Three layers of logs, hatched over one another like a raft. The bearers rested the three shields atop it. The three chests were now almost buried in a mound of brightly coloured flowers.
Herr Hassel stepped forwards, eyes closed and hands reached out in front of him. Like a swarm of bees, humming took up around the clearing. Magic whispered between them, carried by the single note.
'Dearly departed, I call upon thee.' Herr Hassel intoned, his family magic rose with his words, warm and fresh, Gellert could almost smell the freshly cut pine on the air. 'To family sworn, to family stay.'
The volume of the humming increased, louder than the patter of rain and clacking of bare branched.
'You mortal shell has been discarded but your magic remains, eternal, immortal, to the power of the family.'
As he spoke, the magic coiled around the three chests, like a mother cradling a child. It caressed the remains and slowly, incrementally, a second magical presence awakened. It was a wisp, nothing like the formidable strength that the witch had once held, the barest remains of the echoes of her magic.
'Pro familia, reliquas deserant.' There was a great pulse and the bands of magic seemed to briefly become visible, contracting like the deep green coils of a serpent. The chests rattled violently, shedding flowers onto the pyre below.
'Hassel, Hassel, Hassel.' The whisper rippled around the circle, 'Hassel, Hassel, Hassel.'
It built, louder and louder as the shaking grew more and more violent. Then with a flash of green light, it was done. The trace of Frau Hassel's magic changed, flowing and combining with the Hassel family magic, adding to it's power like a droplet in a bowl.
Herr Hassel stepped back, his back sagging.
Lady Grindelwald stepped forwards, her mount trailing sodden wings as she placed the Grindelwald family's faggot of wood onto the pyre.
'Rose was my closest friend in school. We grew up together, we cast together and we married together. I regret that you were stolen from me so soon.' Then, his mother bowed her head and returned to the crowd.
Herr Lintzen trotted up next, his fiery hair dark with rain. He placed his kindling opposite Grindelwald's.
'Rose was the only reason I passed my potions exam, she was my wife's closest confidant and my daughter's magical guardian. She will be sorely missed.'
It took almost an hour for every family head to step forwards and say their words. Every one of them had a memory, or even just an impression of the deceased witch. Before long, the pyre had been built up to almost obscure the larger logs that supported the shields and the chests.
Hermione was the last to come forwards. Her grey mourning veil hung slick with rain against her cheeks and she was pale with the cold, like some unseelie fey. Her eyes glittered with tears as she placed her own bundle atop the pyre. Herr Hassel stepped forwards again, resting his hand against Katana's folded wings. There was a stirring of interest among the mourners; this was unusual.
'My wife was a devout believer in the old ways; she gave her life to protect them. I could do her no greater honour than having the first High Priestess in over a thousand years light her pyre.' Her Hassel turned to Hermione and bowed, and she nodded her head in return. Then she spread her arms, hands turned up to the sky. He felt the magic run down her arms and spread from her fingers like roots searching for water. They found the chests, thickening and growing until the whole pyre was encased in her magic.
'From air to air, earth to earth, I return your body to whence you came.' Hermione intoned, crescendoing until her voice rang across the clearing. 'In fire and smoke; your second coming, your spirits roam free!'
At her last word, the magic that had encased the pyre roared into flame. But they were not ordinary flames that burned the bodies; these flames burned a bright, unnatural gold, licked through with the barest flickers of blue. There was no heat, just a roar of sound and three pillars of fire that wound up and up, reaching for the treetops.
For five minutes, the fire burned, shrinking in size and intensity until all that remained was a single wisp, no bigger than a bonfire, which shrank further and further until finally, it winked out, leaving nothing but a circle of bare earth.
'May you find peace.' Hermione finished quietly. It wasn't a traditional wixen phrase, but it sounded fitting, so Gellert echoed it and was surprised to hear a number of others doing the same.
With the ritual performed, the mourners dispersed. A number came up to offer their condolences to members of the family, mostly those who were not family heads and therefore hadn't been able to already. His mother rode up quickly, catching him before he could approach Albert Freidl.
'Offer your condolences.' She ordered. Gellert nodded, altering his path to ride over to where Herr Hassel was still speaking to Hermione.
'... some people are nervous. They're ready to abandon the old ways for fear of the same thing happening to them.'
'We won't let that happen.' Hermione assured. 'Frau Hassel will not be the last to die for the cause, but it is a cause worth dying for and I will fight to my last breath to see the old ways returned.'
'Yes.' Herr Hassel regarded her for a moment. 'My wife used to think that you were a gift from magic itself, here to bring the old ways back. Why else would such an ancient line be reborn with such power after so long being dormant?'
Hermione was silent, then she laughed awkwardly. His mother rode up next to her, resting a delicate hand on Katana's folded wings.
'I have been fortunate enough to see what she can do when she works with the others of her age. We have a bright future to look forwards to, we just need to be strong until it can be realised.'
There was a note in his mother's voice, and something in the glance that the two witches shared that he couldn't place. It was like they knew something that nobody else did. It caused a nasty pit to form in his stomach, because that look was not a good one.