The Light

Chapter 78- The Funeral

Chapter 78- The Funeral

June 1980

The group of friends had changed drastically since their time at Hogwarts. Once upon a time, they were careless and free, running down the banks of the Black Lake and stargazing in the middle of the empty Quidditch Pitch. Their biggest worry had been how long a foot of parchment in Potions was (and how they could ramble on about all the negative effects of the Draught of Living Death just to reach that foot of parchment), and whether or not they were going to spend Valentine's Day mocking the couples in Madam Puddifoot's, or whether they would be one of the couples in the frilly tea shop window being mocked. It was odd how quietly they had all decayed.

Marlene slept around a lot- they never knew with who. She just turned up in the morning, with mussed up hair and smudged lipstick, waltzing through the front door of Headquarters with her heels dangling from one finger. She would head straight to her room and they wouldn't see her for the rest of the day; once the door had clicked to a close behind her, you would hear her crying. At first, there had been silence with the occasional sniffle, but now Marlene sobbed, sometimes screamed.

"Why does she do it?" Hermione asked one day.

She and Dorcas were tidying up Headquarters, pausing when their friend had made an appearance and the crying had started. The other girl thought for a moment, forgetting about the cloth hanging over her arm.

"She's got so much love inside of her," Dorcas said, staring at the closed door, "that it feels like she might implode. I think she's trying to get rid of it all."

Hermione had looked back at the door and wondered whether it was possible, to get rid of all that love. From the looks of Marlene, it wasn't.

But it was often that she thought about what Dorcas had said. She, at least, seemed to be coping. Dorcas and Emmeline scarcely saw one another but when they did, it was like the rest of the world ceased to exist. Hermione tried not to stare, but their happiness radiated off of them, absolving any room they happened to be in of all darkness. They were like their very own candle in a pitch black planet.

Mary and Peter were the same. The two of them didn't go on many missions and were barely seen around Headquarters but when they made their presence known, they acted like the sweetest of young lovers, smiling and touching and staring at one another. It was odd and somewhat precious how little their love had changed. Hermione prayed to any God listening that He would cherish them just a little while longer. They deserved the distraction, however short-lived and pointless it would prove to be.

She noticed that this seemed to be the case for all of the couples. Maybe surviving was easier when part of your soul was within another person. Lily and James certainly seemed to vouch for that. For them, it was almost like the war wasn't ravaging the only existence they would ever know. They bickered about simple things, like keeping the lamp on at night when they were sleeping, and leaving the oven on, but James still went out and bought her ice-cream when her cravings were bad, even if it was the middle of the night, and Lily would still sing him to sleep, fingers threaded through his hair, when he'd just come back from a raid. Sometimes, he had to microwave rice at some ridiculous hour like 2am. The two of them would sit on their bed in the orange lamplight, with The Beatles softly playing in the background on the tinny, shitty radio they'd bought at a charity shop years ago to make their new home feel a little less empty, and Lily would eat the burnt rice straight from the packet. She savoured every mouthful, making little but quite amusing noises, as though she'd been starved for days. James simply watched her, exclaiming how much of an abomination it was to eat rice in clumps, without breaking it up first but his eyes would always be soft, the look in them fond. Lily just glared at him, occasionally waving her fork threateningly in his direction, but she was harmless and he knew it. At one point, she got to this really stuck together bit and started laughing, nearly choking, tears running down her face.