Spectre: The Dark Riddles #1

39: Diricrawl

"Muggles believed this bird to be extinct, but in reality, it existed and had the ability to disappear and reappear elsewhere as a means of escaping danger, similar to Apparition, while Muggles remained unaware."

--from the textbook Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Newt Scamander, 1927

***

Their funerals are held together.

They are buried in the earth together.

Exactly as Enzo would have wanted it. Likely how Blaise would have wanted it too.

Tom and Mattheo aren't in attendance. They have their own private funeral at Lethe. House Elves require the smallest graves. Tom tells me later that she's next to the stillborn Thestrals.

None of the dead lie alone.

It should be a comforting thought.

I stop finding comfort in anything for a while.

For a week, the nightmares come, and they do not stop. I see dead bodies everywhere. Ghosts haunt my sleep. Jeremiah Rosier. Jade Burke. Thestral newborns. Winnie the House Elf. Blaise Zabini. Lorenzo Berkshire. The list goes on, and then it repeats, a new face every night. Not even Tom's most creative spells or strongest potions can keep the terrors at bay.

Seven days of fear and dread and reluctance.

Seven days more than I can afford.

By the start of August, I'm ready. I tell Tom I need to spend the day with Draco, that I need some time with my brother after everything that's happened. By some miracle, he allows it.

I go to Mattheo instead. Tell him everything. Don't leave him until he's agreed to help me.

I do make a stop at Malfoy Manor in the afternoon, but it is not to find solace in my brother. Instead, I warn him about what's going to happen, assure him that no harm will happen to him. I don't let him try to stop me. He knows better than to try. My mind is already made up. I have to see this through.

I have to make their deaths count.

The sun is setting behind the Devon countryside when I Apparate. A celebration—wedding reception, I think, judging by all the white beneath the gold-poled canopy—is underway. The majority of the Order is here, and they've posted guards in every cardinal direction, doubling down on all entrances and exits. That can only mean one thing: Harry Potter is in attendance.

Light, joyous music rises into the air and spreads through the early evening. I catch a momentary glimpse of a gold dance floor when the crowd parts, but then the familiar head of Luna Lovegood and who I can only presume to be her father block my view once more. There are so many recognizable faces—the Weasleys, Hermione Granger, Victor Krum, even Rowena—all of them smiling, laughing in their celebration.

For a moment, I stand amazed. The world is crumbling just outside this home, fading into darkness. The bad guys are winning. And yet this union of Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour is proof that as long as one candle remains burning, the darkness will not thrive.

I take a step towards the canopy—and feel a large hand on my shoulder, halting me.

"I would think it generous of you to come all this way in hopes of paying your respects to the Weasley family," comes the distantly familiar voice of Remus Lupin, "had I not heard of your infamous duel with Ginny."