TREMOR | HP | ✓

⌘ Chapter 14

"Well what is this, that I can't see? With ice cold hands taking hold of me." - Dock Boggs

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AND DOWN HE went.

"Ronald was..."

Pause.

"He was a great wizard, we all know that. A father, brother and a friend. He had his faults, as we all do, but he was the best mate I could have asked for. He was family. Without him, we couldn't have defeated Voldemort..." my uncle Harry spoke, his emerald eyes searching for the brown ones of my mother.

She cleared her throat and clumped to his side, one arm draping itself around him (with me clinging on her other side), and continued what he could not finish: "For me, these words are not only for the past, but the present and future. His body might be dead and cold but his soul lives on. A-and he left pieces of himself in each of us. He will always live on... in and through us."

My mother clutched my shoulder tightly, as if to stop herself from tearing apart. How could I blame her? My dad, her husband, was about to get buried.

I'd never hear him laugh again. He could never make his silly, yet brilliant jokes anymore. Nobody would ever be able to make me feel warm and home by calling my nickname, but him. His energy, which used to bring life in the house, was gone.

He was gone.

This realization had been present since the day I found Hugo in his shattered state, but I had always stopped myself thinking about it any further. Standing before his grave gave me no other choice anymore and neither could I hold my sorrow back any longer.

My tears flowed, rolling down my cheeks like cascades breaking over a dam. It was too much; knowing one of the closest people in my life had to leave too soon.

Why would he leave me like this? Why was this happening to us?

Two arms pulled me closer to a warm body. I was so busy with crying, anything else, even my surroundings, started fading. I tried to maintain a clear view but the tears gave me no chance to. My walls had been shaky all the way to his burial day and now there was nothing that could stop them from breaking.

"We still have each other," mum whispered into my ear, her other arm now reaching out for Hugo, who slammed himself under her wings, trembling like a leaf in the late, icy autumn seasons.

But she was not crying. She had emptied her tears long before we got there. Now, mum had to be strong for us.

Strong for the last bit of family she had left - for the last bit of dad she had in us. At least, this is what I would feel, if I was her.

Without mum, I wouldn't know what to do or where to go. She helped me not to completely lose myself in my sorrow.

Mum was incredibly independent and brave. After my failed attempts to see or feel anything other than my egoistic pain, her soothening embrace relieved me from the shards stuck on my skin, if only for this moment.

"May he never be forgotten and live on in our memories, as in our hearts," the undertaker finished, as he flicked his wand, letting the coffin float down to its grave. Before it hit the ground, I quickly turned away, hurt consuming me with no mercy.

This time, he had gone too far.

The longer I stood staring at my father's remains, the hotter my tears ran. An untamable rage boiled on the inside of me. Not only that, there was guilt too.

I could have sprevented his death. If I only had known about this bastard's plan, my dad would still be alive. We would be in Hogwarts, me starting my studies again and having him and mum showering me and Hugo with letters or even dropping by to see us.

Nothing would ever be the same.

Nevertheless, it was too late now. And attacking my family was unforgiveable.

If Scorpius thought he could lay hand on my family, he had forgotten whose daughter I was and I was done playing his games.

He would pay for every sin he had dared commiting against my family.