The Magic Within

Chapter 30

Friday 20th July 2018- A day Lavana never thought she'd have to deal with. The death of her parents had always seemed impossible. She had always had it in her head that she would be the first to die. She was reckless, always had been but her parents stayed safe. They would be the ones planning her funeral. Her family would be the ones to pick the flowers, choose the music and figure out what to say in the eulogy.

She never thought that she would have to plan a funeral. Alone.

With her sister missing and her mum and brother in a coma, it was down to Lavana to give her Father a good send-off, even if it was only herself, Reemey and Cressida as the only other family members able to say goodbye.

Lavana wanted her father's send-off to be perfect; it was lucky that she knew him so well. She knew what the one thing he wanted most was- she just couldn't give it to him. He had always said "I don't care as long as everyone I love is there." That wasn't possible. So she would have to work with what she knew about him and get everything else right.

She'd get him the white lilies that he loved so much, the ones he always asked someone to get  so that he could give them to Alara, insisting that she reminded him of them. But now Lavana could only think of him. She'd get him some of his favourite songs and she chose a picture of him sat in front of the cherry tree in their garden. It was the only recent picture she could find of him alone and Lavana was disappointed that it wasn't anything special. But then again, he hadn't left the house very often. 

And then it was just the guests: herself, Reemey and Cressida. Teddy would come, he was very close to her family and had a strong bond with Jacob. She'd ask the Potters and Weasley's but she understood if they were too busy. Anyone else? No. Jacob had spent a lot of his life in hiding because he fell in love with the wrong woman. Any friends he once had would've lost contact with him. He had no one else. Except... But no. Lavana refused to invite them. 

When Jacob had met and fallen in love with Alara, Jacob's family were anything but happy especially his father. The idea of letting another witch into the family was not something that John Tonks was able to accept again. He had already lost his brother that way. In his eyes, it was bad enough when his brother Ted found out that he was a wizard but then he married a witch and ended up getting himself killed. He believed it was all the fault of the Wizarding World, therefore he wanted no part in it. You could argue that he just wanted to protect his family but disowning his own son because he chose someone different just didn't seem fair in Lavana's eyes. 

She had never met her Grandparents, never received a birthday card or even talked to them. Her Dad had rarely spoke about them. All Lavana knew was that he had a brother and sister that he had missed terribly but even they never kept in contact. So now Lavana was left with the decision about whether she should invite his family to his funeral. 'Did they even care?' Lavana thought. 'Would her Dad even want them there?' He wasn't here to decide that, it was down to Lavana.

She settled for a quiet and peaceful funeral send off and when the day had finally arrived, she wasn't shocked to see only Cressida and Reemey by her side. Lavana had chosen a graveyard in England as opposed to America. Jacob was from there and she knew the perfect place for him to lay to rest.

Lavana looked around the gloomy graveyard. It was quiet apart from the few birds that could be heard chirping and tweeting in the trees that were scattered around the graves. It was peaceful. That's what she wanted for her Dad. It was him that gave her the idea for the place. 

The only person in his family that he liked to talk about what his uncle Ted. Her Dad had always said that when he was alive, Ted was always there for him even when his family wasn't. He was very close to him and when he died, her Dad had always said that 'the small part of me that still hung onto my family even after they abandoned me died in that moment!' Lavana wished she had met him. He seemed like an amazing person, just like his Grandson as Teddy would always say. It wasn't surprising how close Teddy and Lavana's father had been considering they were family and Jacob had many stories of his Uncle and cousin Nymphadora that he didn't mind sharing.