Rosie ⎮ Tom Riddle

Forty Eight

Voldemort

  Rosalie's funeral was somber and cold, far from the warmth she had once carried in life. The wind blew with an eerie stillness, the air heavy with sorrow, and the sky, overcast with dark clouds, seemed to mirror the grief of those few who had gathered to say their final farewells. Every whisper of wind, every droplet of rain felt like a shared tear from the heavens themselves. But one face was conspicuously absent—Voldemort never came.

  Lily had been the one to find her. Days after receiving Rosalie's final letter, she had arrived at the lake house only to be greeted by silence. A silence that felt unnatural, haunting. The stillness was deafening, pressing in on her like the weight of all the grief she wasn't yet prepared to carry. It didn't take long for her to find Rosalie—her lifeless body lying beneath the old tree by the lake, the same tree where so many of her memories had been made, where Rosalie had once laughed, once lived. Now, she was still, gone, her pale face locked in eternal sleep.

  Lily had found the children too, frightened and alone, huddled in the corner of their room, Tommy clutching his sister in confusion and fear. They didn't understand. How could they? How could they ever grasp that their mother was gone and their father had long since abandoned them?

  Lily had wept, for Rosalie, for the children, and for the cruel hand that fate had dealt them all. And now, as she stood at the edge of the grave, watching the casket slowly descend into the earth, the weight of Rosalie's absence became suffocating. The rain fell heavier now, mingling with the tears that streaked her face, but Lily didn't move. She couldn't. The finality of it was too much, too overwhelming to bear.

  She turned her gaze to the children. Tommy sat in a small chair beside her, his little face pale, eyes wide and filled with tears he didn't understand. He wept silently, his small hands clutching his mother's locket in his lap, his tiny shoulders shaking. His sister slept beside him, unaware of the depth of the loss around her, too young to grasp the dark future ahead.

  "What do I do now?" Lily whispered to herself, her voice thick with tears, barely audible over the wind. She had loved Rosalie like a sister, and now, without her, there was an emptiness that Lily didn't know how to fill. The world felt darker, colder, emptier, just as it had for Rosalie in those last moments.

  The children were so young, so innocent. How could they possibly survive in the dark world their own father had created? The innocence they still clung to wouldn't last. Not in a world so cruel. Lily's heart ached for them. She couldn't raise them, couldn't keep them safe from the life that had stolen their mother.

  No, they needed to be away from all of this. Away from everything. Away from him.

  As the grave was filled and the final rituals were performed, Lily turned her back on the mourners, her heart heavy with a decision that was already made. She knew what Rosalie would want. She knew that, even though she could never bring Rosalie back, she could still save her children from the same fate. They had to go somewhere far away from the darkness, from the memory of a mother and father who had both been consumed by it.

  Lily wiped her tears away and took Tommy's hand, glancing down at his tear-streaked face. She offered a shaky smile, though her heart was breaking.

  "I'll keep you safe," she whispered, more to herself than to him. 

  As they left the grave behind, the weight of Rosalie's absence settled over them like a shadow, one that Lily knew would follow them forever.

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Seven Months Later

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