p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="58f55774f7ee08b7a9cce059363c63ab"I couldn't believe this day had come, I could not believe I were here, I always thought it would be me first, with the crowd standing here where I am today, including them but perhaps thats what everyone likes to think mentally, to comfort them about their family and best friends. That they will go first, never expecting loss especially at twenty one but unfortunately, Lily James were far from the first. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="216b64b3c86a780c2420583162eae0bf"I didn't know what I was feeling anymore but it wasn't life, a perpetual state of numbness, nothing to ignite. The fire inside me hadn't just dulled, it had died and I was suddenly a cave man with no idea how to light a fire, no idea how to start over again, from scratch. I didn't want to start over from scratch, I was a girl with the whole world at her feet, amazing friends, amazing family, discovering who I was truly meant to be, all torn away from me. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="53639431476e8ac9eb89117cb45133ab"The church was packed with people I'd never met, I wish I could say it was because Lily James were popular, well know, well I mean they were... But it was clear, everyone was here to marvel in the legend that their story was becoming 'the boy who lived'. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="5bbfead8fd33a6c07b41d5396694992b"But, today was about the ones who didn't, the ones who sacrificed themselves to save their son, my godson, Harry, but there was no single respect for that here, it was a travesty. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="624bddbb0b336e93cbbea86a8fd17366"Rita Skeeter most notable in isle two creeping for a news story, I wish I'd not set my expectations high enough to not predict seeing her here, perhaps it helped my anger being able to prepare for the unfortunate inevitable./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="a3d060e243d984ea6aa9148841db51da"I wish funerals like these were new. First it was Regulus, then it was Marlene, then it just spiralled and spiralled and spiralled, I don't even know if I could list the names anymore. No one should be able to make a list at just twenty one./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="66000b39f92690aac9a3838a49c57ef8"I was only twenty one, we were only twenty one./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="086ca5eabcced919a6c1669eb40875b0"Leaving Hogwarts only three years ago vowing to spend the rest of our lives as not just friends but as family, we had become a family and just three years later, there were only 2 of us left Remus I. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="192031a1834db3b3636c2652397021b9"The worst part was, I couldn't even reveal I was alive, after the incident with Sirius in the street everyone thought I was dead, or worse working alongside him, leaving me no option, to flee or an Azkaban side by side with my former best friend, former perhaps reinstated enemy. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="d1d2d6fb3b0b03df87b6a3c8896269fa"I just wanted to hug him, as he stood there in all black, only 2 days after the full moon, fresh scratches down his face and bloodshot eyes, messy hair and a tired smile. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="e151fb56c36ffd30b42e82cec330c016"I just wanted to hug him, but all I could do was stare, hope he'd notice me standing there and that he'd be able to read my mind, but I always overestimated Remus that way, he couldn't read my mind even though it often seemed like it. I just wanted to give him a hug./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="cd44049f1cdbfd58b461bc30e6737d2d"Remus had organised all of this too, no one else left. I were 'missing' presumed to be dead, Peter similarly a finger found leading to that assumption, Sirius in Azkaban without a trial, Marlene dead, Marcus missing, Lily and James well... you know that one already otherwise I wouldn't have been in this room./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="81b5e118a50efe4f179734bada17d431"Maybe Marcus were out there somewhere just like I but I couldn't be hopeful. All my friends were dead apart from one and I couldn't even see him, properly. I don't think anything could have broken me more. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="a62d965775055bd51ee0e55e48594d44"Where do you go at twenty one with such a loss? /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="7c0847a361aced6d6fd8979ffc80de64"My first love in Regulus who never got a funeral, his parents always believing he was 'missing' not dead, delusional. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="a82804d2e3817fd928640061b6d0edb4"Marcus suffering the same fate, Marlene killed in her bed, Peter killed in the street by one of his best friends, Lily James killed by the dark lord himself leaving their only son behind, Sirius in prison for Peter's demise, the Potter's betrayal and 12 muggles also oh... and for me. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="d3463c5e76ba63199500bf5aa8c2e52a"Twenty one years, not one friend left. Only Remus but I had to leave Remus alone, for his own good, I think knowing I was alive but could never see him again in my life could have been potentially worse, the torture of knowing something is in your grasp but never being able to reach it, versus being too far away entirely. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="b547d168d2192dd2ea0679cbc7cbf02a"I was numb, entirely numb, I wish I could cry, feel pain inside but there was nothing. It felt like a scene from a movie, not like I was actually there. Even if Lily James has been taken from us in this way I never thought I'd be here alone, Remus alone. Every funeral so far Sirius I had been side by side, the anchor for each other but now, it was like that same anchor had been swung straight through my guts, impaled me and drained any last form of life out of my body through my blood. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="9d510f58a983b5348978e8c202307119"I hated how I wanted him here, because I hated him with every form of my being, in disbelief that his actions led to these events, wondering if that's why he had cut Remus I off in the end. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="be8ae458652a949447d64d11a75c93a5"The way he tried to tell me to leave so he didn't have to put me in danger as if he still cared, the look in his eyes that was only of love when he looked in my direction, I didn't understand it, none of this added up. At war with the only feelings I had left, wanting someone by your side so bad almost out of habit even though you cannot stand what they have done. I was betraying myself with my thoughts. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="8f211a9ac1f0b6d92a66fa3ac34423ac"I felt like a stalker spending almost the entire funeral watching Remus, using him as a form of comfort almost, even from a distance, surprised he never noticed my persistant gaze, I wasn't particularly hiding well, he would always notice before but I suspected him just like I was suffering the same fate, numbness, complete shutdown in your head, feeling as if you were living outside of your own body, a spectator in a scenario that wasn't real. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="cad7f79efa66a7c7f76a80a7e6ada565"Remus went up to make a speech, a beautiful, beautiful speech, he had always had a way with words but today he could barely get them out choking up not even halfway through talking about his memories with his best friends, light references to the acceptance he never thought he'd get, and then on to Peter and I when discussing the chain of events that led us to this room ' betrayal, the street, you know who turning up in the dead of night. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="5e16fc187c1371fc1b70db5bc801120f"Remus took almost a small interlude after discussing these events, saying that James and Lily would never have been happy unless we got a funeral also, and this was what he'd say if he'd gotten the opportunity I was hearing my own eulogy somehow. Our memories, the way Remus appreciated our friendship, how we had always been on the same page, it's deepness and how irreplaceable it would forever be. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="742ffe3730fc0e3aff980b3f36eebce3"Remus' calling to the Aurors in the crowd to please find me, to bring me back to him if I were still alive, and asking for everyone's best wishes as since only blood of mine was ever found. Then going back to Lily and James and reminiscing some more, giving them the send off Lily would have wanted, and that James would have perhaps thought too PG. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="d5fe8ef88fb44fef5b5464acf5af35b0"It was at that point I had to leave, the guilt eating me inside, seeing Remus talk about me in a way which was just as raw as the loss of Lily and James, broke me inside. I knew the pain I must've been causing him firsthand and it made it all so much worse. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="4abac1b13a7dfc492e34868a9489ac94"I ran out of the church door into Godric's Hollow hyperventilating my head in my hands, my heart beating out of my chest, tears flooding down my face. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="7b39f9bf9cc3a6fc69fc8cd4ef9092e8"I realised though even with a black veil, looking like the young wife of a wealthy man who had died in mysterious circumstances, I may be spotted and sent on a one way trip to Azkaban, the funeral still crawling with Aurors no one wanting to preemptively guess you know who was truly gone, that his movement was gone. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="7c495aa5fd70d3117c88b4b1192871a2"In normal times I would've given myself to them and given up as what did I have left to live for? But since Sirius got no trial I couldn't risk anything. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="c3376e6967a7b7eb0c90457377e044a9"I walked around the back to the graveyard Lily James' headstone already in place, beautiful and tasteful so obviously Remus' hand, the burial site still yet a hole in the ground the coffin yet to be buried but even I knew I couldn't stick around that long at least not in plain sight. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="1232c4c2bff3777bfcb1344f631bdb65"I sat down and I just cried, as quietly as I could. I just cried, laid on the grass between the neighbouring graves looking up at the sky, no thoughts in my head, no capability to conjure any./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="9547acfe88a33e868fcc053307e7e823"I just cried, and cried as the world passed by./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="efd59a3515c4edd3dacef9d140890527"But people began to leave and I so had to do the same thing, the burial itself taking place in a much smaller group that day. One that I couldn't be present at for obvious, unfortunate reasons. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="97c51e9e0eac90c0c37778eff007dc4b"I crept away as if in the dead of the night to an alleyway opposite then church, seeing Remus wave everyone goodbye as they left before there was no one else present just us two, so close yet so far away. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="17a47905b232ccee279cdc520b7cff27"Remus began to close the church door before stopping and simply running his head between his hands and omitting a scream, summarising the mood I'm sure under all the numbness. I just wanted to hug him, but I just couldn't. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="e09ceca6be4fb1b34010e92eae4746d6"I slipped away for the final time, perhaps the final time ever in this country, appearing back into occultum. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="2b33c401d79ede4b60783caf979f02ef"A recluse upon arrival back, slipping away into a hole of my own deeply buried sadness and darkness and inability to even think of my new life, what it could beck e and what was next. Not even on stage one of the grief cycle. As far as I was concerned I died with Lily James that day, my soul died with them. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="fe36d6bda73dcc01557c87e9edc08440"Laid in my room looking up at the ceiling, the dramatic black veil obscuring my vision letting out a scream just like Remus did not long ago, before just laying there in silence for the rest of the night. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="04e01958378e72a82cacad33a0db25db"Eventually crying myself to sleep that night? still no thoughts inside, all in my black dress. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="070318a2196f5643a322617fb3506c69"I didn't think things would ever be ok again, it was impossible to see, it felt like the end, all at twenty one. The realisation I was forever doomed to spend more time in my life without my loves and my friends, my adopted family, than I'd ever got the pleasure of spending with them, a cruel poetry, a devastating loss ,I didn't think I'd ever ever fully recover from. Wether I ever did is still questionable. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="f26682e6947beff4f88902816d4d6aaf"You see when Regulus, when Marlene, when most likely Marcus, when Lily, when James, when Sirius (as he's good enough as dead to me) died a part of me died each time and it will never be recovered, I was a shell of a woman, nothing left inside. The trauma of war my only companion at night. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="356dea930d16906f08663d92b8d4c35b"I knew my memories with my loves, my family, of my old life would start to fade and suddenly did it even happen, or was it in my mind? The fact that Lily James would not forever be idealised memories, the actual details lost in the cracks of the human mind. It was tragic. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="f7061a966fd39e64a3e667fa477ca684"If my life were a movie the narrator would simply say at this point 'Lilah is not going to be ok'./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="d85ea2358d864e4221468e12e67a24f7"And the audience would sit and hope, she was wrong and someday she'll learn from the pain but I felt like the narrator, especially that day./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="a0d986a43ef3ebbd9298465eacac9505"I realised the funeral of the Potters was one day I'd never be able to escape, the deeply buried guilt, sadness and anger would forever eat me inside./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="dbec2b6bbd4b64f2128e17ee7027303d"It should've been me./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="216b64b3c86a780c2420583162eae0bf"I didn't know what I was feeling anymore but it wasn't life, a perpetual state of numbness, nothing to ignite. The fire inside me hadn't just dulled, it had died and I was suddenly a cave man with no idea how to light a fire, no idea how to start over again, from scratch. I didn't want to start over from scratch, I was a girl with the whole world at her feet, amazing friends, amazing family, discovering who I was truly meant to be, all torn away from me. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="53639431476e8ac9eb89117cb45133ab"The church was packed with people I'd never met, I wish I could say it was because Lily James were popular, well know, well I mean they were... But it was clear, everyone was here to marvel in the legend that their story was becoming 'the boy who lived'. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="5bbfead8fd33a6c07b41d5396694992b"But, today was about the ones who didn't, the ones who sacrificed themselves to save their son, my godson, Harry, but there was no single respect for that here, it was a travesty. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="624bddbb0b336e93cbbea86a8fd17366"Rita Skeeter most notable in isle two creeping for a news story, I wish I'd not set my expectations high enough to not predict seeing her here, perhaps it helped my anger being able to prepare for the unfortunate inevitable./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="a3d060e243d984ea6aa9148841db51da"I wish funerals like these were new. First it was Regulus, then it was Marlene, then it just spiralled and spiralled and spiralled, I don't even know if I could list the names anymore. No one should be able to make a list at just twenty one./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="66000b39f92690aac9a3838a49c57ef8"I was only twenty one, we were only twenty one./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="086ca5eabcced919a6c1669eb40875b0"Leaving Hogwarts only three years ago vowing to spend the rest of our lives as not just friends but as family, we had become a family and just three years later, there were only 2 of us left Remus I. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="192031a1834db3b3636c2652397021b9"The worst part was, I couldn't even reveal I was alive, after the incident with Sirius in the street everyone thought I was dead, or worse working alongside him, leaving me no option, to flee or an Azkaban side by side with my former best friend, former perhaps reinstated enemy. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="d1d2d6fb3b0b03df87b6a3c8896269fa"I just wanted to hug him, as he stood there in all black, only 2 days after the full moon, fresh scratches down his face and bloodshot eyes, messy hair and a tired smile. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="e151fb56c36ffd30b42e82cec330c016"I just wanted to hug him, but all I could do was stare, hope he'd notice me standing there and that he'd be able to read my mind, but I always overestimated Remus that way, he couldn't read my mind even though it often seemed like it. I just wanted to give him a hug./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="cd44049f1cdbfd58b461bc30e6737d2d"Remus had organised all of this too, no one else left. I were 'missing' presumed to be dead, Peter similarly a finger found leading to that assumption, Sirius in Azkaban without a trial, Marlene dead, Marcus missing, Lily and James well... you know that one already otherwise I wouldn't have been in this room./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="81b5e118a50efe4f179734bada17d431"Maybe Marcus were out there somewhere just like I but I couldn't be hopeful. All my friends were dead apart from one and I couldn't even see him, properly. I don't think anything could have broken me more. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="a62d965775055bd51ee0e55e48594d44"Where do you go at twenty one with such a loss? /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="7c0847a361aced6d6fd8979ffc80de64"My first love in Regulus who never got a funeral, his parents always believing he was 'missing' not dead, delusional. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="a82804d2e3817fd928640061b6d0edb4"Marcus suffering the same fate, Marlene killed in her bed, Peter killed in the street by one of his best friends, Lily James killed by the dark lord himself leaving their only son behind, Sirius in prison for Peter's demise, the Potter's betrayal and 12 muggles also oh... and for me. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="d3463c5e76ba63199500bf5aa8c2e52a"Twenty one years, not one friend left. Only Remus but I had to leave Remus alone, for his own good, I think knowing I was alive but could never see him again in my life could have been potentially worse, the torture of knowing something is in your grasp but never being able to reach it, versus being too far away entirely. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="b547d168d2192dd2ea0679cbc7cbf02a"I was numb, entirely numb, I wish I could cry, feel pain inside but there was nothing. It felt like a scene from a movie, not like I was actually there. Even if Lily James has been taken from us in this way I never thought I'd be here alone, Remus alone. Every funeral so far Sirius I had been side by side, the anchor for each other but now, it was like that same anchor had been swung straight through my guts, impaled me and drained any last form of life out of my body through my blood. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="9d510f58a983b5348978e8c202307119"I hated how I wanted him here, because I hated him with every form of my being, in disbelief that his actions led to these events, wondering if that's why he had cut Remus I off in the end. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="be8ae458652a949447d64d11a75c93a5"The way he tried to tell me to leave so he didn't have to put me in danger as if he still cared, the look in his eyes that was only of love when he looked in my direction, I didn't understand it, none of this added up. At war with the only feelings I had left, wanting someone by your side so bad almost out of habit even though you cannot stand what they have done. I was betraying myself with my thoughts. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="8f211a9ac1f0b6d92a66fa3ac34423ac"I felt like a stalker spending almost the entire funeral watching Remus, using him as a form of comfort almost, even from a distance, surprised he never noticed my persistant gaze, I wasn't particularly hiding well, he would always notice before but I suspected him just like I was suffering the same fate, numbness, complete shutdown in your head, feeling as if you were living outside of your own body, a spectator in a scenario that wasn't real. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="cad7f79efa66a7c7f76a80a7e6ada565"Remus went up to make a speech, a beautiful, beautiful speech, he had always had a way with words but today he could barely get them out choking up not even halfway through talking about his memories with his best friends, light references to the acceptance he never thought he'd get, and then on to Peter and I when discussing the chain of events that led us to this room ' betrayal, the street, you know who turning up in the dead of night. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="5e16fc187c1371fc1b70db5bc801120f"Remus took almost a small interlude after discussing these events, saying that James and Lily would never have been happy unless we got a funeral also, and this was what he'd say if he'd gotten the opportunity I was hearing my own eulogy somehow. Our memories, the way Remus appreciated our friendship, how we had always been on the same page, it's deepness and how irreplaceable it would forever be. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="742ffe3730fc0e3aff980b3f36eebce3"Remus' calling to the Aurors in the crowd to please find me, to bring me back to him if I were still alive, and asking for everyone's best wishes as since only blood of mine was ever found. Then going back to Lily and James and reminiscing some more, giving them the send off Lily would have wanted, and that James would have perhaps thought too PG. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="d5fe8ef88fb44fef5b5464acf5af35b0"It was at that point I had to leave, the guilt eating me inside, seeing Remus talk about me in a way which was just as raw as the loss of Lily and James, broke me inside. I knew the pain I must've been causing him firsthand and it made it all so much worse. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="4abac1b13a7dfc492e34868a9489ac94"I ran out of the church door into Godric's Hollow hyperventilating my head in my hands, my heart beating out of my chest, tears flooding down my face. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="7b39f9bf9cc3a6fc69fc8cd4ef9092e8"I realised though even with a black veil, looking like the young wife of a wealthy man who had died in mysterious circumstances, I may be spotted and sent on a one way trip to Azkaban, the funeral still crawling with Aurors no one wanting to preemptively guess you know who was truly gone, that his movement was gone. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="7c495aa5fd70d3117c88b4b1192871a2"In normal times I would've given myself to them and given up as what did I have left to live for? But since Sirius got no trial I couldn't risk anything. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="c3376e6967a7b7eb0c90457377e044a9"I walked around the back to the graveyard Lily James' headstone already in place, beautiful and tasteful so obviously Remus' hand, the burial site still yet a hole in the ground the coffin yet to be buried but even I knew I couldn't stick around that long at least not in plain sight. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="1232c4c2bff3777bfcb1344f631bdb65"I sat down and I just cried, as quietly as I could. I just cried, laid on the grass between the neighbouring graves looking up at the sky, no thoughts in my head, no capability to conjure any./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="9547acfe88a33e868fcc053307e7e823"I just cried, and cried as the world passed by./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="efd59a3515c4edd3dacef9d140890527"But people began to leave and I so had to do the same thing, the burial itself taking place in a much smaller group that day. One that I couldn't be present at for obvious, unfortunate reasons. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="97c51e9e0eac90c0c37778eff007dc4b"I crept away as if in the dead of the night to an alleyway opposite then church, seeing Remus wave everyone goodbye as they left before there was no one else present just us two, so close yet so far away. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="17a47905b232ccee279cdc520b7cff27"Remus began to close the church door before stopping and simply running his head between his hands and omitting a scream, summarising the mood I'm sure under all the numbness. I just wanted to hug him, but I just couldn't. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="e09ceca6be4fb1b34010e92eae4746d6"I slipped away for the final time, perhaps the final time ever in this country, appearing back into occultum. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="2b33c401d79ede4b60783caf979f02ef"A recluse upon arrival back, slipping away into a hole of my own deeply buried sadness and darkness and inability to even think of my new life, what it could beck e and what was next. Not even on stage one of the grief cycle. As far as I was concerned I died with Lily James that day, my soul died with them. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="fe36d6bda73dcc01557c87e9edc08440"Laid in my room looking up at the ceiling, the dramatic black veil obscuring my vision letting out a scream just like Remus did not long ago, before just laying there in silence for the rest of the night. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="04e01958378e72a82cacad33a0db25db"Eventually crying myself to sleep that night? still no thoughts inside, all in my black dress. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="070318a2196f5643a322617fb3506c69"I didn't think things would ever be ok again, it was impossible to see, it felt like the end, all at twenty one. The realisation I was forever doomed to spend more time in my life without my loves and my friends, my adopted family, than I'd ever got the pleasure of spending with them, a cruel poetry, a devastating loss ,I didn't think I'd ever ever fully recover from. Wether I ever did is still questionable. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="f26682e6947beff4f88902816d4d6aaf"You see when Regulus, when Marlene, when most likely Marcus, when Lily, when James, when Sirius (as he's good enough as dead to me) died a part of me died each time and it will never be recovered, I was a shell of a woman, nothing left inside. The trauma of war my only companion at night. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="356dea930d16906f08663d92b8d4c35b"I knew my memories with my loves, my family, of my old life would start to fade and suddenly did it even happen, or was it in my mind? The fact that Lily James would not forever be idealised memories, the actual details lost in the cracks of the human mind. It was tragic. /p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="f7061a966fd39e64a3e667fa477ca684"If my life were a movie the narrator would simply say at this point 'Lilah is not going to be ok'./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="d85ea2358d864e4221468e12e67a24f7"And the audience would sit and hope, she was wrong and someday she'll learn from the pain but I felt like the narrator, especially that day./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="a0d986a43ef3ebbd9298465eacac9505"I realised the funeral of the Potters was one day I'd never be able to escape, the deeply buried guilt, sadness and anger would forever eat me inside./p
p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: 18px; font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; padding: 0px; caret-color: #222222; color: #222222;" data-p-id="dbec2b6bbd4b64f2128e17ee7027303d"It should've been me./p