005
CINDERED SPIRITS
Chapter V: Farewell to Harry

Ron Weasley walked aimlessly, dazed, seemingly half-sedated, ambling his way in and out of the small gardens that decorated the castle's West Wing. His eyes were sad and unfocused, but his mind was in overload trying to process it all. Atop one of the guard towers, quietly looking through one of the paneless windows that overlooked that beautiful yard, Fred and George looked hopelessly at their brother, stopping only occasionally to glance at their most recent and most incredible possession.

Had it been found but a few weeks earlier or on some other occasion, they would have been in the time of their lives. The possibilities were immense, and they were all for the taking. In the short amount of time they had the Marauder's Map they had already discovered so many paths and alleys and secret doors and secret passages!

But it all had acquired a poor, sour taste. Even the spells Prongs, Padfoot, Moony and Wormtail had left on the parchment seemed a bit subdued. It had been more than a week since Moony or Prongs even answered when they had written on it.

From the moment they had heard Prof. Quirrel had tried to attack Harry in the makeshift ward, Ron had been on edge, and—as his brothers—Fred and George vowed to do whatever they could to help Harry. They had looked Ron in the eye and told him that whenever someone strange got too close to him, they would be there, and they would warn him. So they sat, and took turns, and pretended to take a renewed interest in the school books; and they indeed were reading a lot more these days—Prof. McGonagall even asked them to stay after class on Wednesday, to inquire about how they were doing.

They were not important—that's what they were telling themselves. Percy and Ron were the people who needed help the most at the moment. Prof. McGonagall seemed to want to talk more, but she couldn't, in the end. She, too, was at loss for words.

There were some people, especially some bitter souls in Slytherin and Ravenclaw, who thought this gloomy show had gone too far already, but there were few people agreeing with them.

Harry Potter's death had shook the castle; had shook Britain. It had not shook the world, and the headline 'The Boy-Who-Lived-Who-Died' still ringed in the ears and hearts of all; and the anger made it a little more bearable to everyone—and the wizards of Britain seemed united at least: for a moment, for a short while, for his last breath.

It was George who saw it.

He had always been on the softer side when compared to his brother. While Fred was always more forward, more brash and more handy in getting the spells and putting his word in, George was more studious, more meticulous, more patient, less abrasive. To a lot of people they were the same; but not to those closest.

But it had been Fred the one who cried the most.

George had one eye on the map and another on some book on the diet of Bowtruckles when he saw it. Harry Potter's name slowly—painfully slowly—was erased from the map. He had pulled Fred from where he was seated and ran to the third floor with Hermione and Ron in tow.

He had supported both Ron and Fred as they covered him with a clean white sheet. He tried to help Hermione, but even he couldn't lighten her load. It had ripped them all.

The funeral would be in a few hours; the Dursleys had politely declined to come, but expressed their condolences. There were lots and lots of important people, in expensive suits and golden-trimmed hats. Percy had sewn on all of their uniforms a piece of black fabric over the house crests.

Harry wouldn't have known any of them.

"Come on, Fred. It is not fair to Ron to do it by himself. We were part of the team; we should be the ones to do it."

Fred closed the map, but not before taking a glance at the dot marked "Percival Weasley" before clearing his throat and going after his brother.

They both put their arms around Ron's shoulder, and the trio slowly, step by step, went to recover the Nimbus 2000 from his Quidditch locker. It was Ron's idea, and saying it out loud helped them.

"Harry Potter," Ron croaked while they were getting closer. "Seeker extraordinaire, Gryffindor pride, brave, courageous, kind, my friend."

The Dursleys had not—after all—sent them much for a last remembrance.

"Albus, it is time."

He did not want to leave his office; he was not prepared in the least for it. Guilt, the most painful regret and guilt welled over his heart. He could not seem to think straight these days. Each morning he woke up and things seemed a little dim, and a little dimmer.

He had already answered hundreds of letters, talked to security personnel, Hit Wizards, Aurors, had shooed away those troublesome Unspeakables.

Oh, how he got angry with those men. They seemed so sure of things, so ready to pick apart the interesting and the queer, so eager to have their names on a new discovery or a new theoretical advancement.

He had been so ready to bring misery to them. He was so close to it: a minimal turn of the words and a budging of his wand and they would regret ever leaving their hole in the sewers of the Ministry, but he resisted. It was not his moment; there was not a way he could ameliorate the situation.

And he had to pay his dues; in time, of course.

The destiny of the world was in a fragile balance at the moment. With Harry gone and his Oracle destroyed, had the Prophecy been invalidated? Or had Neville Longbottom been the new bearer of this burden?

He closed his eyes and sighed. It had been too strong; and he had been too weak. Old vices, old customs resurfaced. He saw the mocking glare and the deriding smile on Gellert's face whenever he tried to turn away from the present, taunting him.

Now was not the time for this. He had to grieve, he had to find Voldemort and destroy that wretched creature once and for all; he had to do this and prepare: to knock on Nurmengard's door in the end.

He let a small youthful hand—Perenelle's; of course it was her—guide him up and through the door. Fawkes jumped from its perch and landed on the top of his hat. He was unusually silent, but he knew his friend for enough of a time already to know that there was a song in there, waiting to come out.

One daunting lament, one final homage to a tragedy: to the death of a child.

He sounded the bell, and the few stragglers who had not yet come down descended the stairs to join the rest of the students. Here and there, there was a giggle and some whispers—it was good that the innocence of children yet prevailed in so dark of a moment.

All lessons were suspended, all examinations postponed. Britain's ministry had declared a week of mourning; France had declared a day. There were already settled many diplomats, researchers, celebrities. He could not deny them this last moment: they all had lost much to Voldemort, and they all had been grateful for his demise.

But the wine and the talks on trade had been in extremely poor taste.

He did not say anything, yet. This was a singular moment, a goodbye.

And yet, none of them were any more monstrous than he was. The Elder Wand grew in power and in strength, and it was already overexerting him. The cloak never left his presence, and no matter what he did, he could never get rid of it. Not even cursed fire touched upon it. It mocked him every night by returning to him every time he did try to get rid of it: by gifting it to Mr Weasley, to Miss Granger, even to Mr Lupin.

But it had always returned. And on the last time, it had covered a portrait of Harry: the one he took after winning the Quidditch match; the one that Mr Ron Weasley managed to fish out of Harry's belongings, wrapped in fine cloth and inside a polished box.

The message was more than received after that.

He caved in to its nature again. His body was yet preserved, the mends were yet to be ruined, the golden blood had turned dark and it poured in chunks were it not for Dumbledore's tragic hand.

They say that after a certain age, all funerals start to become the same. People get old and die. There's black clothes, wet handkerchiefs, an inconsolable loss and the duty of the next day. But that was not one of them.

There were long winded speeches, rememberings of the old war, of James, of Lily, of Fleamont, of Euphemia, even of Charlus and Dorea; but there was little of Harry Potter. The Boy-Who-Lived had died, and there seemed so little to tell—which was all the more tragic.

He glanced at Severus, but that was a mystery that not even Perenelle Flamel would manage to puzzle. He dreaded the way he glanced at him, the way he had seen right through him, waiting, expecting, half in desperation, half in fury—contained, but palpable. He was expecting him to concoct a way out of this, or to at least acknowledge it—what he had done.

That he had not yet done anything …

But Albus was nothing if persistent and hopeful.

He had insisted on the ceremony being held in the grounds, the place where he found the most joy in his short life. He would soon join his mother and father. Overlooking the smooth wooden casket, there was the cursed tree. Some praised the brilliant taste of whomever had planned the ceremony—its golden leaves fell and burned, scattering ash and cinder on the wind, like a black and golden dust upon his last moments. There were but a few left, and it had seemed like an unspoken thing between all: that the goodbye would come soon—as the tree withered, as innocence died.

The last speech was Hagrid's. As if the mumbled words of Mr Weasley and Miss Granger were not enough, that seemed to be the last strain to even the most detached bureaucrat present. It was telling that—to some—the oaf, the bumbler, the incompetent, the brute and seemingly lowest in magic in all the castle would pay the greatest tribute.

'Oh, Hagrid. It truly is the death of a little unicorn.'

There was silence for a long moment while they waited, and waited. The sun shone through the branches of that golden tree, already falling down the horizon. There were but a few leaves left on it.

Fawkes took flight from where he was perched near Albus and landed on a low branch. The people looked in interest as it bowed its head and laid one, two, three tears on a particular leaf. Albus looked intently as the tears formed a drop at the end of the leaf, ready to fall into Harry at any moment.

But the leaf, crackled and dying seemed to have been given new life and turned golden and precious again in front of everyone; and promptly began to die again.

Some people whispered to their neighbours on what a fantastical event that was, and how it would go down in history as a singular moment, where magic permeated the air and imposed its raw nature, its true power, its mighty force, its precious value; some impressed people no doubt had flighty and grand ideas and theories about this golden tree and the phoenix to write and mess about.

Albus observed it all carefully, with a heavy heart: full of hope, full of dread, ready to whatever outcome that would happen.

The phoenix glanced curiously at it for a few moments, before straightening up again, looking at the sun, looking at the deathly pale figure down below; he teared his gaze away from it and looked at Albus before opening his beak to sing a goodbye lament.

The last leaf began to fall, shrivelling the tree to the point of making a creaking and terrible noise. With it, all life had left it, confined to a spiralling, twisting, twiddling golden leaf. Fawkes sang its last note.

And then there was fire.