Turning Tables

Chapter 7 - Funeral

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The day of the McKinnon's funeral was warm and bright. It seemed entirely unreasonable to James, who was standing behind Marlene at the graveside – days this miserable should surely be punctuated by rain and thunder and howling winds. He looked from the back of Marlene's head, where his eyes had been focused for the last ten minutes of the eulogy, to the single headstone that marked the final resting place of her parents and read the epitaph again.

Cassandra & Emerson McKinnon

Taken From Us 10th July 1977

"The Last Enemy That Shall Be Defeated Is Death"

He appreciated the sentiment – hell, he'd want something similar – but he wasn't sure Marlene felt the same way as her parents about this one; she had looked quite shocked when Dumbledore had gently told her that her parents had expressed a wish to have the saying on their gravestone should they pass on, and he was sure that she felt it to be distasteful.

He looked back at her frail form standing upright and proud beside the graves of her only family; Lily was standing on her left holding Marly's hand in hers, and Alice was standing to her right, her head resting on Marly's shoulder and her hand on her back. The three of them had been inseparable for the last three days, and it finally seemed to be doing Marlene some good. She was actually getting up and moving around the house, she was eating – barely – and she was speaking again, though rarely and with very little energy.

It had been a good idea to bring the girls to her, he thought, as he doubted he had the ability to bring her back from her misery single-handed, and it had allowed him the free time to keep Sirius away from her with threats of unspeakable jinxes – he meant well, but Marlene was not in the right state of mind to deal with Sirius Black for the moment.

His musings were interrupted when he realised that the eulogy had finished, and the wizard who had been stood in the front of the gathering had been replaced by Albus Dumbledore. He focused his attention on his Headmaster as he spoke.

'It's a sad day. I don't need to tell any of you how wonderful Emerson and Cassandra were, nor will I try to do justice to their lives in a speech. I will only fulfil a request they once made of me – to have this poem read at their funeral, should the worst happen to them. They hoped that it would bring some comfort to their only daughter, Marlene, whom they loved very much.'

"Do not stand at my grave and weep,

I am not there; I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow,

I am the diamond glints on snow,

I am the sun on ripened grain,

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning's hush

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circling flight.

I am the soft star-shine at night.